Short Story: Warped Beauty

Written in lipstick on the wall were the words FREAK! and hideous. Jimmy saw this when he peaked his head into a room labeled Serine in his search for the restroom. The room was obviously a dressing room, but not a very decadent one. Its contents were a collapsible closet a ratty chair and a warped fun-house mirror with a short bench in front of it.
"Hey!" a large voice boomed from a few feet away. "You can't be back here." a wall of a man said angrily as he approached Jimmy.
"Oh, my mistake sir. I'll just leave then. Oh yeah, and can you tell me where the restroom is?"
"It's by the entrance."
"Thank you very much, and sorry again." Jimmy left and went to the restroom.
When he returned to his seat, he carried a large bucket of peanuts. People sat in front of him and behind him but he had no company on either side of him. The lights went down.
"Ladies and gentleman..." a deep voice projected. "Are you ready... for the most spectacular show... that you have ever seen?"
"Yeah!"Jimmy yelled, smiling and stuffing peanuts in his mouth, completely oblivious to the fact that the rest of the audience was dead quiet.
"Then put your hands together for our first act! Olympic silver medalist Paolo and his partner Serena!" Then swung in the most beautiful, most graceful thing that Jimmy had ever seen. As she flew through the air, Jimmy stood up and was so engaged that he was completely oblivious to the fact that he had spilled his entire bucket of peanuts on the man in front of him.
"Hey pal, can ya sit down?" the man behind him yelled, irritated.
Jimmy was still completely ignorant to his surroundings. "I'm gonna marry that woman." He said loudly.
"That's it!" The man in front of Jimmy stood up and punched him in the face. He fell to the ground smiling.
The large security guard from backstage walked up and quietly but violently grabbed Jimmy and the other man. He carried them each in one hand. It wasn't until they were all the way outside until Jimmy realized what had just happened.
The guard threw him on the ground without saying a word.
"Wait!" Jimmy yelled. "I gotta get back in! I gotta meet Serena!"
The security guard stood motionless at the entrance, his shoulders so broad that they reached either side of the doorway.
"Asshole." The other man said to Jimmy as he walked away.
Jimmy sat down on the ground in front of the guard, thinking. He sat there until the show was over and the audience was leaving. Then he got an idea. Jimmy stood up and used the cover of the crowd to sneak around back. In the back of the building, he found an unlabeled metal door. He tried opening it but it was locked. Jimmy sat down on the ground in front of the door, thinking. After a few minutes, he noticed the dumpster a few feet away and got another idea. Jimmy sat on the ground next to the door, where, when it opened, nobody would see him.
Soon, night came, nobody had used the door yet. Jimmy sat there until morning. He did not move and he did not sleep; he was too excited. Eventually, the door swung open.  Jimmy heard somebody drag a cinder block out to hold it open. A man walked out carrying a large trash bag in either hand, which blocked his view of Jimmy as he walked past. Jimmy used the opportunity to sneak around the door into the building. He quickly sneaked through two rooms into a locker room. Frantically, he opened one of the lockers to find a janitor's uniform. He closed the locker room door and changed into the uniform. In another locker, he found a baseball cap, he put it on and kept it low so that the bill covered his face. He walked out into the hall and found Serena's room.
He stood outside the door and took off his hat. He spent a minute trying to control his goofy smile. He knocked on the door and waited with his hands behind his back.
"Just a second!" a sweet-sounding voice echoed from behind the door.
When the door opened, Jimmy saw the most hideous sight imaginable; a frown on the face of the woman that he loves.
"What's gotcha so down, darlin'?"
"I'm sorry, who are you?"
"Well, my name's Jimmy Lee. I came to your show yesterday and I've really been itchin' to meetcha."
"Well that's sweet, I guess but why are you dressed like a janitor?"
"Oh, that's so I could sneak in to see you."
"Then why did you tell me you're not a janitor?"
"Dang it, I guess I didn't think about that."
"Hehe, you're funny, Jimmy." she laughed.
"There we go, I'm happy to see a smile on that pretty face of yours."
Her smile went away, "Shut up, I'm ugly and you know it."
"Are you kidding me? You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"I get it now, you're just here to make fun of me."
"What?! Of course I'm not!"
"I've spent my whole life in this building and in all those years, not one person has ever called me pretty, why would they start now?"
Jimmy paused, "Can I come in?"
"Fine." She said reluctantly.
Jimmy walked in to find everything exactly the way he had found it the day before. "You've lived here your whole life?"
"Yeah", she replied.
"Have you ever even left this building?"
"No."
"Well of course nobody ever calls you pretty! Nobody ever gets to talk to you!"
"Huh, well I guess you're right about that, but just look at my huge head! Im surprised my neck can even hold it up."
"There's nothing wrong with your... Hey, wait a minute. Have you ever looked in another mirror other than that fun-house mirror?"
"What's a fun-house mirror?"
"Oh my gosh! It's a warped mirror, this one must make your head look big." Jimmy pulled a tin box of mints out of his pocket. "Here, look at your reflection on here."
Serena took the tin and looked into it. she squinted and her frown slowly turned back into a smile. "Is that really me?"
"Yeah!"
"I'm beautiful!"
"Finally! You see it."
"My whole life, I thought that kept me here as a freak for people to laugh at, I felt trapped. But now, I can leave, and I can be anything."
"Can you be my wife?" Jimmy asked quickly with his usual thoughtlessness.
"Why not?" She said.