Summary: "It's bringing up a lot of stuff. A lot of..." A glimpse into Agent Elizabeth Anderson's past and why she may have felt a kinship to little Stephanie.
A/N: I'm writing a story for another movie that no one has seen but me. It's not even a good movie, but something about it just stuck with me.
Lizzie's dollhouse was strewn across the floor in pieces. Some had been smashed against the wall. Other pieces had been deliberately stepped on. Lizzie herself sat across the room on the floor cross-legged. She didn't dare cry nor move. Any noise was likely to draw her father back into her room. She hoped he'd move on to her mother, who was currently passed out on their bathroom floor after her usual lunch of high-end liquor and assorted colorful pills.
Lizzie could feel the familiar sensation of a tingling bruise on her cheek and a swelling eye. She would have to miss school again for the next few days until her face was almost back to normal or could be covered with make-up.
She continued staring at the remains of her dollhouse. She hadn't played with it for a few years now. It had become more of a sentimental possession of a teenager than a toy. She was gradually learning that it was pointless to attach such sentiment or emotion to anyone or anything. Her father had effectively beaten those things out of her.
When she heard the telltale raised voices that signaled her parents had found their way into yet another fight, Lizzie felt comfortable enough to move about. She stood up and started cleaning up her room. Once her parents' attention turned to each other, the Earth could stop spinning and neither of them would notice.
She started by discarding the dollhouse pieces, but ended with four large trash bags of toys, dolls, posters, and unnoticed straight-A papers and report cards. After carting the bags downstairs, Lizzie now stood in the middle of the room surveying the bare walls and empty floor. She closed her eyes and balled her fists at her sides willing away the noise from the other room, the pain from her face, and the emotions roiling all throughout her. She forced it all into a tiny imaginary ball and placed it an imaginary corner of her brain. She willed it to stay there.
Lizzie wasn't old enough to stop the beatings, her mother's drug and alcohol use, or her father's horrible midnight visits to her bedroom. She couldn't control any outside force in her life now. But from this moment on, she could control her anger, her tears, her pain. Lizzie could be patient. She could wait, wait, wait…