The Unhidden Truth

A short story about a misfit of a girl and an outcast of a boy who fit together like puzzle pieces. He saw the beauty when no one else did. And she saw nothing.

Never had I ever met a girl like Verena Aalbers. People called her different but she was the most normal person I had ever known. The rest of the world was just different, and she was beautiful.

As a child in a small German town, I had grown used to seeing the same blonde hair and light eyes. Every so often I'd see a brunette who was a misfit in our perfect little world. When I moved on to high school, it was the same. My football team was blonde and tall, our teachers were blonde and tall. And then there was her.

There was no one who didn't know Verena Brooke Aalbers, the girl whose name was an oxymoron. Even the teachers refused to go near her. No one had ever been more of an outcast than she, with her dark hair and green eyes.

Some rumours said she was a witch who was perpetually cursed to be different. Those were the drama kids. Others said she was an Arab refugee, but her parents looked the same as everyone else.

She was simply Verena, and she was no one. Except to me. Because I was a no one. We were two of a kind; outcasts of the same variety. Only she was Verena. And I was me.

The girl was outcast royalty, praised by those who hated her. And she took on rumours like a queen, with a mocking smile and a gallant wave. So it was impossible for me to meet Verena Aalbers. No matter how many times we got paired up in class, or how often I sat at her lunch table, I was still no one.

Until one day, when she couldn't do all the work, or leave me to wallow in shame. Our art teacher said to "find the beauty" and paint it, all the while laughing as she paired me up with Verena. So she painted and studied me with determined eyes, the same way she looked at a particularly difficult maths problem. And I watched the way she held the brush, the way she hung the canvas to dry. I studied the way she sashayed out of class with confidence no outcast should have, and the way she ate her lunch with her head high instead of hung, like mine. And as I eyed the way she straightened her skirt and combed her fingers through her ebony waves, she finally spoke.

"Why do you keep watching me?" she asked with a superior huff.

I didn't do dialogue. Nobody spoke to Verena; in fact many of them thought her mute. I could not answer. And yet, I did.

"Four our project," I stammered.

She laughed at that, and I was stunned. It was a cold laugh, one of utter contempt for herself. I was surprised so much that I didn't notice myself continue speaking.

"She said to find the beauty, but there is nothing to find."

I realize now how that must've sounded to her, but I hadn't then. She was unsurprised by my response.

"Nothing I haven't heard before."

"Because I've never seen anyone as beautiful as you."

She looked at me then, as if I were something strange. Which I suppose I was. But no stranger than her.

"What?"

"I said I couldn't find the beauty because you cannot find something that is not hidden. So instead I'm trying to find what is the most beautiful," I replied shakily.

I had attracted and audience, because Verena was not invisible nor was she quiet. And I was the only person who had ever spoken to her. And the only person to call her beautiful. Perhaps I was the only one who thought it because even she stared at me in shock and disbelief.

"Good luck with that, Thomas. The project's due Friday," she finally stated.

She strutted away once again, leaving everyone to look at me. In an attempt to break the tension, my sister came over to mock me with her perfect blondeness. She ruffled my dark brown hair in teasing and belittled me with a smile. I scowled before stalking off in the same direction as the outcast before me.

For two more days, I observed the way Verena acted. I learned about her nervous twitch, how she touched her bridge necklace whenever someone commented on her appearance. I learned that when she grinned, which was very rare, the corners of her eyes would crinkle and her nose would scrunch happily. I learned that she loved to read those awful romance novels that you buy at a garage sale for fifty cents.

By Friday, I knew exactly how to paint Verena Brooke. So I picked up the brush and dabbed it in yellow paint. She stared at me in confusion but said nothing. That day, Verena studied me. She watched me sweep colors across the canvas with precision. She observed the paints I chose and silently judged how often I used yellow. Finally, I finished my project. I looked at it with pride while Verena looked at me like I was a new puzzle to solve. I turned the canvas around, and she gasped and her features softened as she gazed upon my masterpiece.

I had painted her how I saw her. It's how I remember her. Her dark hair fell in soft waves that never settled on her shoulders quite the way they were supposed to. Her eyes were not flat green like trees but were instead a collision of greens and browns with a ring of gold. Her wild grin was captured on the portrait, along with the way she curled her nose up and the lines by her eyes,

But I know you're wondering about the yellow. Why did I use yellow? It was to highlight the ever present positivity surrounding this outcast. It surrounded her like an angelic glow, and I'd centered it on her necklace in the shape of the Brooklyn Bridge. Because I found out what it meant to her. What was more important was what it meant to me.

The bridge was her. Something beautiful that people loved to stare at but still criticized the stability of. But there were a few, like me, who dared to walk across it, even after hearing the stories of failure about those who came before them. That was Verena Brooke, whose name meant "under the bridge over water". It was as beautiful as she was.

And my days observing her had paid off because the look on her face was better than the one I had painted. She laughed, genuinely instead of cynically, and hugged me.

"I love it!" she screeched, in her loud way.

She went to go hang it up with elation that was unreal for anyone but Verena. She came back with another canvas; the one with my portrait on it. I had yet to see it because I had been too busy watching her. But now it was revealed to me by the angel that was her, who wore an excited smile.

She had managed to make me handsome with the paintbrush. My own dark hair was swept up and off to the side in the front, the way it looked when I woke up in the mornings. My normally dull brown eyes had a certain light to them and were not one shade but several. I was not smiling, per say, but the corner of my lips were turned upwards as I observed something. She had captured me the way no one else had bothered to.

"Who is that?" I joked.

She mock-frowned and stuck out her tongue.

"It's when you look most beautiful; when you're studying something and you don't bother trying to fix your hair. You look real."

I stared at her with a newfound fascination, and she grinned cheekily before ruffling my hair. For once, it wasn't belittling, but rather affectionate. And I was happy being an outcast. So long as she was with me.

"And that's the last of Thomas Annen's journal entry on his painting 'The Girl Under the Bridge'," the audio tape stated in its scratchy voice.

The American girl looked at the picture with admiration. Looking around, she touched the canvas delicately as if she were trying to memorize feeling. A serene smile graced her normally dark features as she whispered something to the painting of the long-dead woman.

"Good choice, Grandad. She was a good one."

The girl moved on to the next exhibit as if nothing had happened. And the portrait of the girl who was no one was not ever forgotten. Because she was somebody to someone and now she was somebody to everyone.