He Shamed Me, I'll Destroy Him

On the tenth day of my postpartum recovery, my husband, Deputy Commander Harvey Wyatt, uploads a photo of me breastfeeding my newborn in a disheveled state to the department's group chat. Obviously, that photo was taken without my knowledge.

"See? After having a kid, she's as loose as a sack. It makes me sick just looking at her. I much prefer my side piece, who's nice and tight."

A few female colleagues send sweating emojis to the group. The majority of the chat, however, consists of the male colleagues' perverse silence.

While I continue to burp my baby with one hand, my tears land on the screen.

In order to give birth to this baby, my pelvic bone was sawn in half, which causes me so much pain that I can't even walk properly. But all I get in return is my own husband body-shaming me in front of hundreds of people.

I don't bother arguing with Harvey at all.

Half an hour later, I drag my broken body all the way to the commander's office with a divorce agreement as well as the chat history over the past ten days, which has been printed out, in my hands.

Chief Heath's office door was right in front of me, and through it came Harvey's deliberately lowered laughter.

"Could Winnifred's temper be due to postpartum depression? Harvey, you'll have to be more understanding." As the police chief, Patrick Heath, spoke, his voice carried a tone of perfunctory sympathy.

"Depression? She's just spoiled! I was just joking in the group chat, and she has to make a federal case out of it." Harvey's tone was dripping with disdain, as if the woman he'd publicly humiliated was merely an embarrassment to him.

I looked down. My baby, Munchkin, was sleeping fitfully in my arms with her small brow furrowed.

A searing pain shot up from my pubic symphysis with every step, each one an agony. But instead of retreating, I pushed open the ajar door.

The conversation inside ceased instantly.

The room was hazy with smoke.

Harvey was lounging on the couch, his legs crossed. Across from him, the female officer, Leigh Nicholson—the one who had posted the sweating emoji in the group chat—was peeling an orange.

Seeing me, Leigh paused mid-motion. She didn't get up, but instead leaned a little closer to Harvey.

Harvey's smile vanished. "What are you doing here? This is my workplace. Are you trying to make me a laughingstock by showing up here dressed like that? You think I'm not embarrassed enough?"

I was wearing a loose nursing top. My hair was carelessly pinned up, and there were still mud stains on my cotton slippers. In contrast, Leigh was impeccably made up, her police uniform crisp and neat.

"Honey, I came to bring you something."

Suppressing the tremor in my body, I slapped the printed sheets onto the desk. It was a divorce agreement, along with screenshots of the group chat and voice recordings of him impatiently talking