Closet Monsters

By TheBucketWoman

Disclaimer: I do not own Life With Derek or anything else I may reference herein. No profit is being made nor is any infringement intended.

Chapter Thirteen.

Part One: Lizzie.

It was another week before Lizzie was allowed to take gym class, and even then she had to show up with a doctor's note. It took three or four classes before anyone would toss a basketball to her. Jamie had been the first to try, but he hadn't been blessed with the gift of eye-hand coordination (and he needed glasses). So he missed her completely, and almost hit Danielle Richards in the face. Danielle caught it, barely, and passed it to Teddy, who finally passed it to Lizzie. And then Lizzie made a three point shot.

That felt better than anything had felt in weeks. Better than her new phone (which had proved to be so much cooler than the old one had ever been). Better even than sneaking downstairs early in the morning and swiping the last of Derek's stash of marshmallow cream and making a fluffernutter before he could catch her (another thing she'd pulled off that day).

Still, it hadn't occurred to her that she was having a good day until she was in the locker room, changing. It hadn't been some big revelation, more of a huh moment. She'd been thinking of borrowing Casey's blue nail polish. It went with a top that Lizzie's Mom had picked up for her over the weekend.

"Thought you could use some spring stuff," she'd said, not bringing up the outfit that had needed replacing. Lizzie hadn't brought it up either, but she'd thought about it. She'd half-consciously gone back to her more tomboyish stuff, trying not to hide herself, necessarily, but to pick out clothes that she could run in, in case the need arose.

When she got home, she asked Casey about the nail polish.

Casey's eyes got big. "Really?" she said her mouth full. "Yeah!" She put down the apple slice she'd been munching on and took a second to finish chewing. "You can have it, if you want."

"Um."

"You know what would be cool?" Casey asked. "We should have a girls' night. Mani-pedis, chick flicks, the whole thing!"

"Simmer down, Head Case," Derek said, head briefly emerging from the fridge. He looked over at Lizzie.

"What?" Lizzie asked him. He shrugged and shook his head, pretending that he wasn't checking up on her. He was being all protective and that was a good thing, but it was also starting to bug her, just a little.

"Can I pick the movie?" she asked. Lizzie loved Casey, but if she let her pick the movie, there'd be Jane Austen from here to the end of the world. One could only take so much period drama.

Casey quit glaring at Derek just long enough to say "Of course!" just a little too brightly, proving that Derek was right and she did indeed need to simmer down.

Should've waited for Ed to get out of detention, she thought. She'd been planning to do just that, but Edwin had put one hand on each of her shoulders, stared at her seriously, and said, "Go forth, young Elizabeth. Go forth and watch the afternoon television that the rest of us cannot."

Even Mrs. Pummelman laughed before she shooed him into the detention room and shut the door.

But really, Lizzie couldn't even watch a Law and Order rerun without Casey wondering if it would be too soon, too upsetting, a trigger of some sort. Derek came into the room with an overloaded bowl of popcorn. He sat down in his chair, ignoring the dirty look Casey gave him.

"Derek," Casey said.

"Yes, dear?"

"I'm not going to find a microwave popcorn bag on the counter, am I?"

"Of course not," Derek said.

Casey, being Casey, got up to check, letting out a frustrated growl when she got into the kitchen.

"I think it might be in the sink, actually," Derek told Lizzie.

"Derek," Lizzie sighed.

"What'd she ask me?" Derek asked. Then he rolled his eyes. "It got her off the subject of triggers and crap, right?" When she continued to stare him down, he said, "No one's asking her to clean up after me. She just does it." He held the popcorn out to her and she took a handful, not pretending to be anything but grateful.

When Casey came back in, she grabbed the popcorn bowl away and announced that it was hers now, part of her fee for cleaning up after PigPen. Wrestling ensued. Kernels everywhere. Lizzie took the opportunity to pick up the remote while their backs were turned and began channel surfing.

"Wait," Casey said from somewhere under Derek. "Wait-wait-wait."

"What?" Derek asked.

"Stop."

"Huh?"

"STOP!"

"Okay! Okay!" he said, clambering off the couch. "What the hell?"

Casey's eyes cut over to where Lizzie was sitting. Derek's followed. Casey's eyes were huge and guilty, Derek's a little more guilty, a little less worried.

Because obviously they couldn't mess around without Lizzie having a flashback, triggering some PTSD that Lizzie didn't really have. Sometimes it really seemed like they'd never stop tiptoeing around her, and that caused her blood pressure to rise. She felt her face getting hot.

"Look at the mess you just made, McDonald!" Derek said, thinking fast, gesturing at all the popcorn. "Jeez! Can't take you anywhere!"

Lizzie'd been about to yell. Now she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Was she more mad at Casey for acting like she was some ticking time bomb, or was she mad at Derek for defusing her? Or did she just want to laugh?

They kept bickering, the way they always did, and Liz stopped paying attention. They sounded like nothing she needed to concern herself with. Their fights were always the same, and they always ended with something needing to be vacuumed.

Meanwhile, Liz was still hungry and they'd just wasted all the popcorn.

"It's like you were raised in a barn!" Casey said. "No manners, Venturi!"

Manners...

I said 'wussup'. What's your problem?

I'm talking to you—in the flowery thing. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?

Casey touched Lizzie's arm and next thing Lizzie knew, Casey was holding her mouth. Because Lizzie'd hit her in the face.

Part Two: Edwin.

To say that Edwin had come home to more chaos than usual that day was an understatement. Lizzie was back to apologizing and crying almost non-stop.

Derek explained what had happened, that Casey had gone to touch Lizzie at the wrong moment and Lizzie panicked and elbowed her in the face, sort of like when she'd shoved Derek into the wall.

Now Lizzie didn't want to go near anyone because what if it happened again. What if she hit Marti?

"This is not okay," Lizzie kept saying and she mumbled things about getting locked up.

Edwin followed her upstairs, doing his best to keep what he thought was a non-threatening distance. He sat on his stairs.

"Liz," Edwin said. "Come here."

She stood in her doorway.

"Feel like sitting down?" he asked, patting the spot next to him. She shook her head.

"Okay," Edwin said.

"So," Lizzie said. "You're about to tell me everything's gonna be okay, right?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"You're full of it, " Lizzie snapped. Then her chin started quivering and she moved to sit down on the floor in front of her room. "What do I do?"

"We're gonna go to counseling," Edwin said. "If you want, maybe Dad can see if he can move the appointment up. If that'd make you feel better. But that's it. That's what we need to do."

Over the next few weeks, Lizzie did better. There were flare ups and fights all over the place, but truth be told, these couldn't really be called unusual. They lived in one loud, fight-y house.

Lizzie did stuff that made Nora and Casey worry, like dye her hair blond with blue streaks at the beginning of the summer (Edwin thought it was the single hottest thing he'd ever seen,) .

Out of boredom, Lizzie took up a few new sports, like running, dragging Casey to the track at the high school every morning. She tried to get Edwin to come with, but he couldn't drag himself out of bed at 6am on a summer morning for love or money. He did end up getting dragged to the gym with her, though.

No matter how much he protested that the human body, specifically his human body, was not meant to twist into yoga positions, Lizzie's word was law. It was good for them, she said. It was soothing, she said.

It was excruciating, he said. She couldn't exactly disagree. She was only a little less achy than he was.

"We just need to stay with it," Lizzie said. "Casey says it gets easier."

He had the idea that maybe they could discuss getting her back into Taekwondo. Their emphasis was on discipline and self-defense after all, not really violence. Maybe enough time had passed.

"I'm sure Nora still has that guy's number. What was his name? Biff?"

"Skip, I think," Edwin said.

"Skip," Dad said. "Maybe he could give us some ideas."

"He's really gonna want Lizzie back," Edwin said.

"Yeah," Dad said. "But, tell ya what, I think Lizzie wants to come back."

"She's not a yoga kind of a girl," Edwin agreed.

"And you're not a yoga kind of a guy," Dad said, reading his mind.

It turned out to be a stupid idea.

"No!" Lizzie said, when he brought it up. "Are you kidding me? Absolutely not!"

"Sure you don't want to think it over?" he asked.

"Positive," Lizzie said. "There is no way I'm going back to taekwondo. Not now. I thought we went through this already. I'm not doing it."

"Okay," Edwin said. "If that's what you want. I just thought that you didn't seem happy with the other stuff you were doing."

"It's too dangerous," Lizzie said. "Dr. Simpson said that I need to channel my energy into something that makes me feel confident and that helps me to feel calmer. I can't get triggered again and knock someone's teeth out. Or worse."

Edwin hadn't really thought of that.

Guess it's a good thing I'm not in charge, huh? He thought. It was really hard to figure out what was going to be a trigger. She was fine with cop shows and violent movies but would shake if she smelled leftover fish when it was her turn to throw out the garbage.

She also refused to wear shoes she couldn't run in and got nervous whenever Casey and Nora wore heels to go places with her.

The family learned not to question this, just like they learned not to touch her when she seemed upset, to talk to her instead. Derek and Casey had also needed to be taught not to hover so much. That, like everything else was an ongoing process, especially since Casey kept denying that she did any such thing. Derek didn't deny that he hovered; he just didn't think that there was anything wrong with that. That hovering was his duty as an older brother.

So, yeah.

Process.

In the end Liz stuck with yoga, while Edwin worked his way through every class the gym offered. He tried boxing for about a minute, losing interest when they reminded him that he was going to have to spar with people. The difference between people and the punching bag he liked so much was that people could get hurt. This was something he didn't want to have to worry about and something he especially didn't want Lizzie to have to worry about on his behalf. Anyway, people hit back. So that was out.

He did ask his Dad about the possibility of getting a punching bag for the garage, though. A red one, preferably.

He worked his way through other classes from Capoeira to Tae bo to Zumba and back to channel surfing where he really felt he belonged.

As the summer wore on, Edwin figured that there were less things to worry about. They all continued with counseling and that seemed to help, but Dad and Nora kept repeating that it was going to be an ongoing thing. That it could take years.

Edwin figured they had time. Though Lizzie wasn't really a fan of waiting, he could be patient.

FIN.