The Royal Scandal | Prince William |

Is This My Legacy?

May 20, 2018

The first thing she does once they get back to KP, after seeing Harry and Meghan off to their honeymoon, is throw her shoe at William. The heel stabs perfectly between his shoulder blades, but when he jumps to face her he doesn't look surprised.

"How dare you!" She screams, praying the kids are already passed out down the hall. The second shoe follows in quick succession hitting his chest. Her words and threats have been bubbling inside her. She's gone over this confrontation a hundred times in the past hours, but now she's looking into his defeated eyes and the words have left her with nothing but her anger.

"I know," he whispers.

"No you don't!" She shrieks, tracking where he moves in the room. "I gave up my career, I've silenced myself, I've shaped myself into the perfect consort for you! I take the blame when things go wrong, I draw the attention to myself to save you, I'm killing myself to carry your children. I exist for you, and you, and nothing but you."

She pushes her chair over to the closet of their room where he's stopped. It's a rash decision but she stands walking on numb bare feet, needles pricking her soles as she leans on the handles of the closet door.

He looks at her like she's crazy, reaching to help her, but she's being driven by something much darker than she's used to. When she clumsily falls into his chest she hits him, fists pounding at him as fiercely as she can even if they are puny attempts. He doesn't flinch or retract.

"You, you, you..." every word she enunciates with a hit to his chest until she's screaming through her sobs. They stay like that, Jaclyn tearing at him until the blinding white flashes in her simmer down, and he stands still to take it.

In the waning aftermath, with her heart painfully clogging up her throat, Jaclyn feels like she's coming undone. Painfully spiraling with her heart that's been cleaved. William looks down on her like if she touches him one more time he'll shatter, and he doesn't move to guard himself.

She takes a step back, her fury freezing so her tears are sheets of ice across her cheeks. Stones settle in her stomach, and she falls back into her chair.

"I want to know what happened."

Her voice is stoney, her eyes matching her cold tone. William sits at the edge of their bed, knee bouncing. It's their anniversary. Seven years of marriage and here they are stretched to their breaking point.

"I don't-"

"Don't give me that bullshit William." He blanches at her outburst, eyes leaving the carpet long enough to meet her unnerving stare before his head falls back down." I deserve to know."

The window panes vibrate with the wind that beats them, it sounds like a hammer on a nail, and she has to clench her eyes and fists to stop herself from screaming.

"What have I done to deserve this?" Her voice shutters harshly, with the pounding wind her back beat. "Other than do exactly as I'm told to?"

His voice comes out like a brewing storm. Soft but equally tumultuous with rain of regret and clouds of resentment. "You don't make it easy, Jac. Everything I do when home is wrong, you're unhappy all the time-"

"I have a right to be unhappy. How do you expect me to be happy for you when I can't even be happy for myself?"

They both stop, panting from their outbursts with their words clenched between their teeth. Jaclyn can't breathe, can barely think past the ache that she's felt for the past day. Her skin is spotted, cold along her pulse lines where she can no longer find the race of her heart, but warm around her babies who are keeping her alive just as much as they're hurting her.