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the backgroundThe trip to Montana was *not* fun. We took a Greyhound. It was Ric, Shawn, and me, and Gram accompanied us as well. We spent about 3 days on those buses, and ended up actually getting in early, by taking a senic route, rather than the one we originally were supposed to take. My first thoughts on Montana, was that it was a weird place. I remember going to our new house (actually an apartment of sorts), and seeing our dog, Dixie, and my cat Sam. Which definitely made me happy. =) Also at the house, there was some little boy peeking at us through the bushes. We went to go eat at the local truck stop. But everything was so strange. Later, back at the house, I looked outside to the downstairs area and there was this strange girl there. She was wearing two different earings, and bright flourecent colors. I thought to myself, "What strange people live here." She was watching me as well, I wonder if she was thinking that about me! :)
I was starting 6th grade that year, and Mom was starting a new job. She was traveling a lot. Roger lived with us, he had his own room, with his own door out to the balcony, from which he could leave from. So he shared the kitchen and bathroom and living room with us. Mom had to leave for 6 weeks, and Roger stayed with us. Starting a new school was hard, especially since I hadn't done it in awhile. Everyone already had their 'groups' and other people were not considered 'cool'. But the girl who lived downstairs helped, whom I later found out was named Kristen. Her and I became best friends quickly. And soon her ways weren't 'weird' to me, but cool.
We also became friends with a girl who lived in our small little neighborhood, named Daisy. She was really cool (at least we thought so). She was also a grade above us. We hung out constantly and fought constantly. It was always 2 against 1. I had met other people at school as well. We had our own little group, though it wasn't nearly popular in the least. But I didn't care (too much) and we enjoyed ourselves. I remember Destiny and I talking one day about how we wished we could be popular. Heh.
I was starting to do worse in school, having a hard time concentrating. The school held a meeting on me, with child protective services, saying I should be taken away because my mother wasn't around enough. Thankfully my next door neighbor, whom at the time was named Penny Kipp, or Ms. Kipp, my P.E. teacher, stood up for me, and said she helped look in on us, and that we were fine. Kristen, Daisy, and I hung out at Ms. Kipp's house constantly. Daisy had dated her *much* younger son, Bill (who was in 4th grade at the time, and Daisy was in 7th). Soon Steph moved in along with Chris, whom Kristen and I both had a tremendous crush on. I used to stay the night with Stephanie a lot, practically lived at their house. They even took me out of town with them to visit their grandmother!
At the end of the school year, Shawn, Ric, and I took a train back to Pennsylvania. The train ride was awesome! Mom told us *not* to buy anything from the snack car, but I snuck down there to find Ric already there, so of course, he didn't tell on me. Mom gave us plenty of stuff to take with us, so we wouldn't have to buy stuff from there, since it was so expensive. I loved exploring the train. It was nighttime when the train reached Pittsburgh, and one of the people woke us up. I immediately ran up to the observation car to look out at the city at night. I was so happy to be back there.
Gram and Pap picked us up, and Shawn immediately commented on how we wouldn't have any fresh air anymore. *grin* We went back to Gram and Pap's and of course slept. During our summer there, we got to visit Dad, and we even got to back up to Erie to visit friends. I haven't seen any of those friends since then.
Towards the end of the summer, it was back on the train to head back to Montana. Right before we had gone to Pennsylvania, we'd looked at houses, and we knew Mom had bought a house. So when we got back to Montana, we got taken there. We were so excited to see Dixie and Sam of course, and we ran around to explore our new house.
7th grade started, and I pretty much had the same friends. I was still somewhat troubled in school, having troubles to remember to turn in my homework. I met a girl named Jen Case, who was a 6th grader who lived in my neighborhood. We hated each other. But soon became friends. Dixie died, which was hard on all of us. Pretty soon, Jen and I were spending all of our time together, though we'd still fight. I was still friends with Kristen, though she had too moved, and she came to visit sometimes, and I went to visit her as well. Her and Jen became friends also, and once again, the three of us started fighting. We still talked to Daisy sometimes, though not as often.
Nothing spectacular happened in 7th grade, except I got my first french kiss. :p I bet you wanted to know that. That summer, we didn't go back to Pennsylvania. I spent most of my time with Jen. By this time, she had moved out of the neighborhood, and then later moved back into the neighborhood.
8th grade year was a big change for me. At the beginning of the year, I started to know more "popular" people. I didn't really hang out with them outside of school, but I'd hang out with them at school, at lunch, and in classes, and in between classes. I started to date a "popular" guy at school, which I was way happy about. I went to a football game with him and his friends, and then later back to his house. He started to walk me home, pushed me down on the ground, and raped me. I went home and I was so upset. Mom yelled at me for not coming home earlier, but I didn't tell her what happened. I called Destiny and told her. (She had started talking to the more popular people as well, and we didn't talk to many of our old friends anymore.)
Time went on, and I tried my hardest to deal with everything. The next day *everyone* had heard about what happened, only, they were just told that I had sex with him. People I didn't know were coming up to me calling me by name, telling me about what they'd heard. I was the talk of the school. I had gone from a nobody, to someone everyone loved to talk about, and I hated it. I had only told a few people about what really happened; Destiny, Jen, and Pat (my ex). After a few months of this, Pat told my mom. She freaked out. I was so mad at him. She started dragging me to therapists and psychiatrists.
I was dealing with the rape incident okay, but I was having a real hard time with everyone talking. The guy started to pretend he didn't know me, so I guess he was having a hard time with it as well. Even my teachers were harrassing me about it. I started to get really sick. I first got tonslitis and sinusitis, which then turned into mononucleosis, which turned into a bronchial lung infection. I was sick for much of the year, and missed a lot of school. The days I did go to school, I was a mess. People would call me a whore and a slut and make fun of me in terms of how "loose" I must be, etc. I'd cry several times a day, and I'd try to hide it, but that was hard to accomplish. I'd get up and walk out of classes when I was upset. I just couldn't handle it.
After my 8th grade year, I decided I needed a break, and I went back to Pennsylvania for the summer. Shawn was back in Pennsylvania, because he had attended a summer college program at Carnegie Mellon University. While I was there, I visited my father, who proceeded to tell me off and call me and my mom sluts, etc. And told me to go back to f*cking Montana where I belonged. He dropped me off at Gram's while spinning the tires. I was hysterical. Gram could barely understand me I was crying so hard. I called my mom, and she arranged for plane tickets for me, so that I could come home ASAP. I did have to attend a family picnic though, on the paternal side of the family. Shawn took me. He blasted his music as we pulled up, and I managed to ignore my father the whole time. His girlfriend came in and said "Paige, why don't you say something to your father, tell him hi, tell him he's an asshole, but tell him something." She had been telling me off while I was with my dad that day also. I just ignored her, and started to cry when she walked off. I left the next day, which was also my father's birthday, August 15th.
Upon returning to Montana, I would soon be starting 9th grade, at the high school. I had managed to pull off pretty good grades during 8th grade, even considering the lack of attendence I had, due to sickness. I was definitely unhappy with my father, and managed to avoid talking to him until Christmas time. 9th grade started alright, I was in honors classes, and I really wanted to make something of myself. People were still talking about me, but it wasn't as much. Some of the people from Radley Middle School had heard of me, even though they hadn't known me at the time.
I met a lot of new people that year. I became friends with the girls from Radley mainly. At the bonfire, I was introduced to Jenny Freeman, who immediately got mad and asked if I was the Paige from HMS that had screwed Cody Warren. I asked if Cody Warren and Cody Kipp were the same person, and she said yes. I then told her about how I knew Cody from Chris and Bill and hadn't seen him since 6th grade. Jenny and I became friends shortly after, very good friends. Destiny started meeting the same people, and pretty soon we were like a little group, all best friends. It was me, Destiny, Jenny, and Jaime Sheldon. We were in the main group of the school, more or less. Everyone partied, and I did as well. I still hung out with Jen when in the neighborhood though. Jen and I also started getting into trouble. We began shoplifting, and proceeded to get caught on January 10th, along with three other people. I got charged by three different stores, and had to go to court for the first time. I got 20 hours of community service, which I hated. I had started to skip school, repediately. I was spending more time away from school than at school. I was always with my friends. Jenny was running away a lot, and we'd all skip with like 10 people or more. We had a lot of fun, but it was pretty stupid.
I met some other people, who got high all the time, and drank. This girl, Christina and I became pretty good friends. Though neither of us had ever really been drunk. I had only drank once previously, with Destiny in 8th grade, and hadn't been drunk. Well, we were skipping school with this guy Jesse and this girl Amber, and we went and stole alcohol from a store, MadDog 20/20. (Yuck.) We must have stolen 8 bottles of it or so. Anyhow, we all drank them, except Jesse since he was driving. Christina and I decided to see who could drink their's the fastest, and I won. I drank almost the whole bottle in less than 3 minutes, and only had one more drink left, so I drank that, and grabbed Ambers, and started drinking some of that. It took almost no time to hit me, I was completely drunk. Christina and I were laughing so hard, we thought it was the funniest thing in the world. We were apparently annoying Jesse severly, who was completely sober.
Jesse drove us back to Helena High, and apparently Christina and I wanted to get out and try to walk. Jesse and Amber drove off. They swore they had told us they'd be right back, and not to go anywhere, but neither Christina nor I recall that. We were walking through Helena High's parking lot, tripping over the wires and stumbling into cars. Jenny later told me she was looking out the window that day and had seen us. *blush*. Anyhow, we were almost off school property when some teacher grabbed my arm. He asked me who I was, and I immediately said, "My name's Julie Malensek, and I go to Capital High." He told me he was going to have to take me inside, as it was obvious I had been drinking, and I looked at Christina and said "Jamie! Come with me!" She shouldn't have, but she did. I vaguelly remember walking into the school, and seeing everyone all kind of fuzzy, and tipped to the side. I think I was falling over though. I blacked out, and he let go of my arm, and I guess I *did* fall. My brother, Ric's friend, Nate Gilman had caught me. The guy proceeded to take me to the office (or at least this is what I've been told.)
My next memory is sitting in a little room in the office at Helena High. I was sitting at this round table, and seated around the table with me, was the principal Mr. Nactsheim, and the school counselor, and I think some woman, though I don't know who it was. The door was closed, and they were all staring at me. I don't know if I had been talking before that, since I was blacked out, but aparently I was wide awake, or something. I said "Where the f*ck am I?" and the counselor said, "It's okay, Paige, you're intoxicated." I said, "F*ck you, I'm not f*cking intoxicated, you f*cking pr*ck." I was swearing at both him and Mr. Nactsheim. I then proceeded to try to stand up, to leave, but they pushed me back down. My next memory was sitting on the floor, and then my next memory was sitting in the chair. I don't know if I fell and then got back into the chair, or if I dreamed it up. I then tried to get up again, adn then pushed me back into the chair. I laid my head down on the table and looked at this big floor to ceiling window and thought,"I'll just go through the window." (Stupid thought, I know, especially considering the window went to a small area inside the school that had no outside entrance, unless I had gone through the school, and I believe they keep the door locked.)
That was my last memory. Others have filled in some of the missing pieces for me. I know I threw up all over the office, and Mr. Nactsheim's office. They called my brother down to the office to identify me, since I kept swearing I was Julie Malensek. (Who, I might add, was my oldest brother's fiancee.) Ric told me I was rolling around on the floor, moaning, and throwing up. I know they called a police officer to the school, to write out my ticket, and that while he was there, I had started going into convulsions. The police officer called for an ambulence. I know they strapped me down to a stretcher, and that they wheeled me out, right after the last class of the day let out, so everyone saw me. Rumor has it I looked terrible and smelled even worse. Erm. I know I threw up in the ambulence, and at the hospital, for 4 hours straight. I know they were running heart monitors on me, and all kinds of other things. I know my blood alcohol level was .16 after 4 hours of straight puking, and that they believe it was probably about .4 at first.
I woke up around 6 or 7 o'clock. (It was so long ago I can't remember well anymore.) Everything was really blurry when I opened my eyes, but I finally focused and noticed two people looking down at me. One was Jen Case's mom, and the other was someone I didn't know. I said, "Hi Mom! Excuse my language but.." and then looked at the other lady, and said, "Who the f*ck are you and where the f*ck am I?" The lady told me she was a nurse and that I was in the emergency room at the hospital, which I denied as the truth, and started screaming at her. I then looked at Jen's mom again and asked where Jen was. She told me Jen wasn't allowed in the room because she wasn't old enough. I basically threw a fit until they allowed her in. I remember she came into the room and I sat up. Went to stand up, and fell into her. It was only then that I realized I was still drunk. It was also then that I realized that I was wearing a hospital gown. I was mad. I had no clue who undressed me, and Jen watched on almost in shock as I swore and stumbled around the room gathering up my clothes and putting them on.
I was also very mad because I had a bandage where the IV had been, so that made me mad. Danielle, the lady I baby-sit for had to come pick me up because my mom was in Texas working. She got in a lot of trouble for having to come home early.
Shortly after that, I ran away. For two days. My mom started taking me to more psychiatrists and I finally settled down with Lynn, whom I still see. She's great. They put me on prozac, which my mom swears helped. After freshman year I returned to Pennsylvania yet again, only this time my mom more or less shipped me there. She was going to Washington DC for a few months, and the state wouldn't let her leave me behind, as she did with Ric and Shawn. So I was forced to stay with my dad and his girlfriend Shari, which was *not* my idea of a good time.
By the end of my first day there, my dad and Shari had completely told me off, put me down, and insulted me and my mother. I called my mom hysterical. She made me stay. After about a week, things changed. It was soon my dad and me against Shari. This went on all summer long, and Dad and I started getting along really well. Shortly after I returned to Montana, Shari and Dad broke up.
Sophomore year started out okay. I was still hanging out with Destiny, Jenny, and Jaime most of the time. I soon got together with Chris (remember him? Ms. Kipp's son whom I had a crush on?) Things were great with Chris, and I "fell" for him instantly almost. It didn't take long for things to "fall" apart. We got together on October 17th, and on Christmas Day I found out he cheated on me with *3* girls. I was heartbroken. Still, we decided to work things out.
Of course, as I'm sure you're already assuming, that was a bad idea. I stayed with Chris for 2 and a half years. He cheated on me with at least 15 people. And those are only the ones I know about. We broke up, he'd come back after he got done sleeping with whomever he had broken up with me for. But that was only after I'd find out about them.. then he'd break up with me for them. I felt like I was worth nothing basically. I mean, if I was any good, why would he be out with all these other people? I had to have just been terrible.
And he made sure I felt like sh*t. He'd call me names, put me down, and make me feel completely worthless. He drank constantly and was quite mean to me.. and treated me like sh*t. It went on and on, and it escalated and escalated.
In the meantime, school was becoming pointless. I was still skipping constantly, only instead of going out with friends, I just stayed home. I never went to school. I lost credit for all of sophomore year as well. For Junior year, I transferred to Capital High, but I was only there for a couple of weeks before I dropped out. I was a Junior, taking freshman classes, with no credit. I got my GED in the Fall of 1997.
Chris and I broke up at the end of March of 1998. I found out about 2 weeks prior that he had gotten some girl named Kasie pregnant. In February, around Valentines Day. Chris had met her online, and she lived in our town. Even after I found that out, I tried to make things work, I was so desperate to make it work somehow. I figured that if I wasn't with Chris, I'd never have anyone, and I'd be alone for the rest of my life. Well, for the two weeks after I found out (from someone else, he didn't even tell me himself), he was getting ready to move to California. For the ARMY. He had wanted me to go with him, but as soon as I found out he had gotten her pregnant, I said no way.
During those two weeks, I barely saw him. He was always with Kasie, always doing this, always doing that. And I realized that if he had loved me so much, he'd have been spending time with me, especially since he wouldn't see me for who knows how long. So I broke up with him.
He moved to California, and called constantly. We still acted as if we were together. But, the day he left, I started going out every night. With Jenny and even Destiny and Erin Owens. A lot of people. I was never home. 2 weeks after I started going out, I got really sick. The doctors said it was a viral stomach infection. They gave me painkillers and said there was nothing they could do, I just had to wait for it to go away. It was extremely painful. When I went back to the doctors again, they took a urine sample. In the urine sample, they found traces of substances from my liver. So they ran blood tests on me. They informed me they believed that I had hepatitis, and it was probably A, and not to worry too much.
Well that terrified me, heh. When they got the blood tests back, the results were positive for hepatitis. They retested the same blood samples to find out what type of hepatitis, and it came back negative for hepatitis. So they tested it yet again, and it came back positive. The doctor informed that I had apparently had hepatitis B 6 months prior, and that it was gone, but I'd have traces of it for the rest of my life. He assured me that I wasn't contagious though.
Well. They took more blood, and they tested it.. And it came back negative for *ever* having hepatitis. So the doctors were stumped. So they took another blood sample and it came back negative as well. The doctor told me "We're not quite sure what it was you had, we believe it was some sort of a viral infection, though not hepatitis. But we believe that it is now gone." And that was the end of it.
I was sick for close to 2 months. A month after Chris had left, and 2 weeks after I had gotten sick, Chris came to town for 2 nights. I enjoyed seeing him very much, and we made plans for me to visit him in June. Well. It didn't take me long to reconsider the whole entire relationship, and soon I knew that it was over, and that it had been. I just didn't know how to tell Chris that. I put a poem I wrote on my webpage, and apparently Chris read that, and got the hint. But, when he'd call, I'd make up excuses to get off the phone, and I avoided him as much as possible.
My mom got married May 26th, 1998, to Don Hillberg. I was the Maid of Honor, and Point, Don's best friend, was the Best Man. Shawn and Ric gave Mom away, and Ryan, Don's son walked down the aisle as well. It was a small wedding. I still wasn't feeling great, but I was feeling lots better at the time. Mom got married on the top of McDonald Pass, outside in an opening overlooking the other mountains. The view was amazing, and the wedding was windy, but great anyhow. A few family friends came with.
Shawn was supposed to marry Julie Malensek on June 27th, but they broke up about a month before the wedding, around the same time Chris and I were completely finished. Dad, Annette (Dad's newest girlfriend), Grandma, and Gram had already purchased their plane tickets. So Shawn decided to throw a big anti-wedding, since the family would be out anyway.
It was the first time Dad and Annette and Grandma had ever been to our house. Gram (mom's mom) had been out for Ric's and Shawn's graduations. Anyhow, I was making my brother's anti-wedding cake the night before the anti-wedding party.. (I had also made my mom's wedding cake). As I was doing this, someone showed up at the door. It was Chris. I was in shock. I had no clue what he was doing in town, since I thought he'd be in California.
I had also started seeing Mike, someone I met on IRC by this time. He'd been in town a few times, and was coming back in town a week after the anti-wedding. Chris was in town for quite awhile. I managed to avoid him when I was with Mike, and avoid him overall. I got him to remove his stuff from my house, clarified to his face that it was over, though I cried when I told him.
In July, I went out to Seattle to see Mike. I stayed out there for 3 weeks, we got along okay at times, and not so great at other times, but Mike was always a really sweet guy. I came home on August 10th, and then went to Seattle again 2 weeks later, for another 2 weeks. Mike and I broke up right as I was leaving and as soon as I got home I found out some shocking news...
page created - 10/26/98
page updated - 8/4/99