Paige Michalchuk - Season 4

Season 4

The rape trial doesn't get underway until season four. Dean's lawyer grills Paige with questions about how many men she had been with. Paige angrily replies that she was a virgin before meeting Dean and that she would not have chosen to lose her virginity to a guy she had met at a party. However, the judge reluctantly finds Dean not guilty of rape, due to the lack of witnesses and physical evidence. Sometime after the trial, Paige attends a party at Dylan's college. In an attempt to relieve herself of her stress from the trial, Paige gets drunk and flirts with several guys at the party, even though she is dating Spinner at the time. Paige tracks Spinner down and tries to sleep with him, but he refuses, which makes Paige angry. The two argue; Spinner feels that Paige would never get over the rape, while Paige is angry and depressed that no one seemed to sympathize for her.

She steals Spinner's car keys, drove to the frat house where Dean is rushing and tells everyone in the house about her rape. Dean takes her outside, denies raping her, and demands she stop telling people. But, a few moments later, he proudly admits that he did indeed rape her. He walks off, telling Paige that she should call him should she ever want to get together with him.

Paige, infuriated by Dean's indifference, crashes into his car with Spinner's car. Dean calls the police on Spinner, and he is arrested. Spinner takes the punishment for Paige, but she eventually confesses to the crime. Paige apologizes for wrecking Spinner's car and begs him to take her back. He does, and Paige promises to pay for the damages to his car.

After Rick returns to Degrassi, Paige, Spinner, Jimmy and Hazel try to get him kicked out, but have no avail, even after Marco and Alex talk to Mr. Raditch about how dangerous he is. Emma, trying to get in with the popular crowd, vows to help Paige get back at Rick, for Terri's sake. However, after Jay begins beating Rick up, Emma puts a stop to it, angering Paige and the others. When Rick has paint dumped on him as part of a prank, he returns to the school with a gun; he considers shooting Paige, but decides not to when she expresses her sympathies and admits that she was disgusted with the prank. Rick then goes on to shoot Paige's fellow student, Jimmy, later in the same episode.

After Paige totals Spinner's car, she is forced to find a job. She tries working at The Dot, the Degrassi students' favorite hangout, but discovers that she is horrible at waitressing and is subsequently fired. She then sets out to find a new job, but, unfortunately, the only job she can find is working at the movie theater in the mall with Alex Nuñez. This irritates Paige, as she and Alex had never gotten along, and Paige feels that she was better than Alex. The two eventually warm up to each other, and become good friends and eventually lovers.

After Hazel informs Paige of Spinner's possible romantic involvement with Manny Santos, Paige is suspicious that Spinner no longer likes her. While working at the movie theater one day, Paige witnesses Spinner and Craig Manning getting into a fistfight over Manny. She then ends their relationship once and for all.

Paige later dates Matt Oleander, a teacher's assistant at Degrassi. Paige and Matt go to great lengths to hide their relationship. One day at school, Manny catches them kissing, but doesn't say anything at first. Soon afterwards, Paige and Manny get into a physical fight in the hall, which Matt and Ms. Hatzilakos break up. Manny angrily calls Matt "Mr. Pedophile," which raises suspicions, and Matt is called into the office. Paige is also called into the office, and is shocked to learn that Matt had said she was stalking him.

Paige confronts Matt, but eventually agrees to go along with his story. The next day, Paige has a meeting with her teacher, Archie "Snake" Simpson, Ms. Hatzilakos and Matt. She confirms Matt's story and then says that she wants to be transferred out of his class. They refuse to let her change, so Paige says she wants to change schools. Because her school year would be lost, however, they refuse to let her. Mr. Simpson doesn't believe her, as he had overheard Hazel teasing Paige about Matt one day in class. He tells Ms. Hatzilakos, and Matt finally confesses to his relationship with Paige. Matt is fired and the couple start openly seeing each other. At the end of the season, Matt leaves Toronto for the summer, after getting a job planting trees in the Yukon