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Second in a series -- A fateful decision to leave foster care
EDITOR'S NOTE: Crista Hudson's life-changing car accident two years ago was preceded by years of turbulent teen life made worse by family struggles and peer pressure. In this second installment, Crista picks up the story with a new structured life with foster parents in Imperial.
McCOOK, Nebraska -- Crista Hudson explains, "When I have structure ... when I'm not getting away with anything, I don't even try it. I do well."
The only time in Imperial with the Colton family that she did get into trouble, Crista said with a giggle, involved "a cute boy. And I knew I was not going to try that again."
She never missed going to school. "With Mom," Crista said, "I pulled the 'sick card' when I could. At Imperial, even when I was sick, I wanted to go to school."
"I walked into a new school, and they treated me so well," Crista said. "From the first second in school in Imperial, I was 'the new cutie with the booty,'" she smiled. "Maybe because I was doing so well, it seemed like they wondered why I was in foster care. They realized I had just gotten lost in a game I shouldn't have been playing."
She attended CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) and had a job, at a restaurant called, "On Broadway," "and I loved it. I saved my tip money. I didn't spend it."
In Imperial, Crista said, "I did really well. I was really, really happy. I loved Imperial."
At semester time, it was time to decide, "What do we do with Crista?"
Swiping at a tear sneaking down her cheek, Crista said she didn't want to go back to school in Trenton, but she did want to go home to her mom. Crista was doing well -- the choice was up to her. "But I couldn't have both," Crista said.
Crista feels that her case worker wasn't entirely truthful with the judge when the caseworker told him, "Everyone thinks Crista should go home."
The decision that Crista regrets most in her life is her decision to move back to Trenton. "I went home, and I should have stayed in Imperial," Crista said.
Crista learned later that the Coltons also feared the decision to move back to Trenton. "Charlie called my counselor and said, 'She can't go home. Nothing good will come out of this,'" Crista said.
The struggle to fit in back at school in Trenton continued as it had before, despite the good feelings and the self-confidence Crista had gained in Imperial.
Crista could feel the stares ... the questions ... "They thought I was gone. Why was I back? She's acting happy ... How is she like this?," Crista said she thought then.
"I seemed to run around with the popular girls, but I still felt like the dispensable one. I always felt like the low-man-on-the-totem-pole -- I could always be replaced. They could take me or leave me, it didn't matter to them," Crista said. "I could hang out with the popular girls, but I wasn't really one of them. They were superficial. My family ... I ... wasn't ever good enough for them."
Crista tried to make new friends when schools in Trenton and Stratton merged, but the old frustrations continued.
"I tried so hard," Crista said. "I bent over backwards to get people to like me. It's all I wanted."
Slowly, day-by-day, Crista lost the self-confidence she brought with her from Imperial, and desperate for friends and acceptance, Crista turned to other people who had trouble making friends -- the partyers, the drinkers, the dopers -- she said.
"I didn't care anymore," Crista said.
Crista's first weekend back home, she asked her mom to let her go to her grandparents' house in McCook. "And it started all over again," Crista said.
On other weekend trips to McCook, curfews came and went, and Crista would tell her grandmother, "I'm just running late." That turned into, "'I'm staying at so-and-so's house,' but I wasn't staying at so-and-so's house. We'd gone out partying," Crista said.
Before driving home to Trenton late one night, Crista's car gave her trouble, and her mom didn't believe her when she called home to say she'd be late because the car wasn't running well. "Mom thought it was just another excuse to stay in McCook overnight," Crista said. "When I got home, the doors were locked, and the hidden key was gone."
Mom and Zane had gone to bed. Mom's boyfriend was up watching TV, but he wouldn't answer Crista's knocks at the door. "He yelled at me to get off his property," Crista said. "My response was 'You can't kick me out. What am I supposed to do?' I was kicking on the door and out he came -- he physically threw me off the porch."
"I got around him into the house and told him to at least let me get my things," Crista said. A fight ... horrid, ugly words ... a shattered glass tabletop ...
Back in McCook, she didn't think she could go to her grandparents' house. She ended up at a friend's house -- again, with no adult supervision. "I continued to go to school in Trenton, but I was still partying. I'd call in sick a lot," Crista said.
She continued, "The school had had enough," and the principal supported Mom's boyfriend's low opinion of Crista. "I told him (the principal) to 'shove it,' he said, 'Get out of my school,' and he expelled me," Crista said.
As she tried to get things out of her locker, law enforcement got involved, there was more discussion, more explanations, and the next day, the principal called Crista and told her to come back to school.
"But why would I want to?" Crista said. "Nothing was going to change. Neither he nor the kids liked me."
"Now I had all the time in the world to party," Crista remembers, "but Grandma was determined that I was going to graduate."
So Gloria set her up with GED classes. "Grandma really had to push me," Crista said, but partying was still more fun than studying.
Crista, now 18 years old, was living with her friend, April, and April's dad, who said the deal was that Crista could stay until she graduated. Crista said that he questioned her often, "When are you graduating? When are you leaving?"
Crista's mom had her own house in Trenton at that time, so Crista moved back in with her. "But I never stayed the night there. I was always in McCook partying," Crista said.
"I got into a lot of trouble that summer," Crista said. "Four MIPs (minor in possession of alcohol), possession (of drugs) and (drug) paraphernalia, disturbing the peace, unpaid fines."
That fall, it was time for college, but Crista was still partying. "April and I got our own place, and now we provided the place to party. Our place became the college party house."
That didn't last long, and Crista was back living at her grandparents, in the basement which was meant to provide privacy so she could study and do her homework. "But I was never home when I was supposed to be," Crista remembers.
In September, Crista and two friends were driving to Iowa when they were in a bad accident on the interstate. "We were really lucky we weren't hurt worse," Crista said. "I flew forward and dislocated my shoulder. That kept me out of school for awhile."
In October, over a boyfriend, Crista overdosed. "I took 22 Vicodin tablets and started drinking Southern Comfort. Crying on the bathroom floor, I guess I fell asleep."
"It was weird," Crista said. "I was out, but I remember Grandpa finding me." Crista was clinically dead -- not breathing, no pulse. "It was a strange experience for me. I have this vision of floating above as I watched Grandpa give me CPR. He kept crying, 'Oh, baby. Oh, baby,'" Crista said, crying at the memory.
"My Grandpa saved my life," she said.
Crista was admitted to a drug rehabilitation center in North Platte. "I hated it. It was like jail ... jail, all over again," Crista said. "I begged and pleaded with them to let me go home. I promised I wouldn't do it (an overdose) again."
Crista says, looking back, "That overdose was the stupidest thing I've ever done. I won't ever do that again."
But the partying continued, and she was partying now, too, in Colby, Kansas, with a new boyfriend. "It was an instant connection," she said, and she had plans to move to Colby. "I was driving back-and-forth. I wanted to be with him," Crista said.