Page 15 of My Devoted Mountain Man

Fletcher leaves me, and I sit down on the bed to think. There are parts of me that I've been keeping from him—that shame of not being good enough to sell my art. The heaviness of needing to produce that art, even though I know it'll never be good enough.

When I finish packing, I go look for him, and to my utter horror, he's standing in the middle of my studio, inspecting all my hidden pieces of art.

"What are you doing here?"

"Erika, these are magnificent. Why are you not showing them in your gallery?"

"We should go."

"These would sell like hotcakes, sweetheart."

"Can we just go?"

So far, he's been looking at my artwork, but now he takes a good look at me and realizes that tears are flowing down my face. I can't seem to stop them.

"Erika, what's wrong?"

"Please, let's just leave."

He puts down the painting he's been inspecting and pulls me into his arms.

"It's okay, sweetheart. I'm right here with you."

More tears come out, and then I'm ruining his shirt with them. I try to pull back from his embrace, but he won't let me.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"No one would ever buy my art, Fletcher. It's not good enough."

He cups my face in his hand and makes me look up at him.

"What are you talking about? Every piece here is sales-worthy. There are thousands of dollars of artwork here in this little room. Why would you think they're not good enough?"

"Someone told me I could never sell my art," I say, sobbing.

"And you believed them."

It was a statement, more than anything else, and I nod in agreement.

"Would you help me destroy them?"

"What? Never. What we are going to do is frame them and put up an exhibition in your gallery."

I start to panic. What if people see my art and hate it? Worse even, tell me to my face I'm no good. I don't think I could stand it. So I approach the first work of art and start destroying it.

"Erika, stop!"

My whole body is shaking as I tear the paper into tiny little pieces, and as I finish with that one, I start with the next. I need to shred them all into pieces.

I don't know how many works of art I destroy, but I'm exhausted when I collapse into Fletcher's arms.

Now I'm full of shame for having acted this way in front of him.

"I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Erika. It tore at my heart to see you destroy those beautiful pieces. What can I do to convince you that your art is worth sharing with the world?"

"I don't know that I'll ever believe that again."

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