She opened the door to their bedroom and looked around the room. William was packing a suitcase. “So your just going to leave without any explanation?” He stopped, stood up straight, and sighed heavily. “You say it as though this is easy for me, Mary,” he said. “Well, you don’t appear to be having any problems so what am I supposed to think?” He moved to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and took some clothes out. “I just can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?,” she asked, testily. She sat down on the bed. She knew very well what the answer was. It was the marriage....or, more specifically, the lack of one. He paused, “This. Us. I can’t stay here anymore.” They had been leading separate lives, lately. She, throwing herself into her job, and him taking on the role of supportive spouse (a role he was not used to having). She thought that he understood that he couldn’t really interfere with her job. He could give her advice, or his opinion – but ultimately SHE had to be the one to make the decision...to do the job she had been chosen to do. It had been a mutual decision when she decided to run for the presidency. It had to be. They would be traveling constantly all over the country, and meeting more and more people. It had been a grueling and draining process, but it paid off...she won, by a landslide. William had never complained. He had never let on that he wasn’t happy with the way things were.

On the day she was inaugurated, he was beaming with pride. All throughout the day he kept saying how proud he was of her, and kept calling her “Madam President.” But then the reality of the job she had just gotten began to settle in. She inherited a war, a jobless economy, a very angry global community, and a divided people. She became more and more exhausted as time wore on. William started to become irritated that he couldn’t comfort her about the problems the country was having. Telling her everything would be fine just wasn’t going to cut it.

The problems followed her into the residential part of the White House. She was becoming depressed, and William started to disappear for days on end. When he came back, all they did was argue. She thought he was having an affair. He thought he wasn’t getting enough of her attention. “Why can’t you stay anymore, Will?” He looked her directly in the eye, something he hadn’t done in months. She had forgotten how blue his eyes really were. “You’ll hate me if I tell you,” he said. “I already hate you,” she said, coldly. “Fine...You want the truth?” She nodded, “Damn straight I do!”

“My grandfather may have been cut out for being the ‘bloody amoeba’ as he put it, but I’m not,” he said, ashamedly. She was stunned. They both stood there in uneasy silence. Then Mary started to chuckle. “I really don’t believe you...you’re a fucking hypocrite. You spent your entire life complaining about not wanting to be King and not wanting to be in the spotlight, and now that you’re neither, you tell me you want to take that all back? Well you know what....screw you. Let someone else enjoy the spotlight for once,” she was steaming, and her face was red. “That isn’t the point.”

“The hell it isn’t. I told you when you proposed that I was NOT going to give up anything...not my citizenship, not my religion, nothing. I told you. And you said you didn’t care because you were going to abdicate the throne in favor of your brother anyway.” He sighed heavily, the tears starting to stream down his face. “I know you, William. A lot better then you give me credit for. And I love you, ok? I do! But you and I need to make a decision here and now as to whether or not we’re going to let our egos get in the way of our marriage.”

“Fine...then I AM going to let my ego get in the way of our marriage, ALL RIGHT??? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR??” He was screaming at the top of his lungs. “WELL FINE, IF THAT’S HOW YOU WANT IT. THEN FUCK YOU!!” Then he came at her and in an instant she was on the floor. Her cheek was stinging and red from the slap.

She looked up at him from her position on the floor. She got up, holding her cheek with one hand. She stared at him, stunned. He stood there, angrier then he ever had been. She walked up to him, took her free hand and, throwing all her anger and weight behind her fist, punched him in the face, making him bleed. He fell to the floor from the impact. “Get out,” she said through gritted teeth, “and don’t bother coming back.”

He got up, grabbed his bag off the bed, and left without looking back at her. When the door had closed behind him, Mary went to her night table, grabbed their framed wedding picture, and hurled it toward the door. The frame hit the door, shattering. The pieces fell, glinting in the light of the late afternoon. What a metaphor, she thought.