Hick’s colleagues say her decision is the accumulation of six months of terribleness. She has always hated Washington, and never made it her home. She never wanted to make friends here and never trusted anybody outside of the small group of people she befriended inside the White House. Any spare moment she had, she traveled to Connecticut and New York to spend time with family and old friends.

What kept her in Washington was simple: Donald J. Trump. She was totally loyal to him and some colleagues believe she’d become a crutch for him.

But her leaving is no surprise to her colleagues. For somebody who wanted to stay behind the scenes, the constant coverage of her — whether it be the Rob Porter crisis or the Russia investigation — made her life hell, her colleagues say. One colleague told me she could never get used to how provincial Washington was. Nobody in New York bothers her when she walks the streets of Manhattan, but in DC she gets “spotted” at restaurants and chased by paparazzi.