Lucita waited until the end of the week. She let Liz think she had won, but really, she was biding her time. All her files, her project, everything Liz had thrown out, leaving her blindsided when it came time to the presentation, she had in her backpack. It was time to rectify the situation.

What better time than before spring break.

The bell rang, and she waited for everyone to filter out of the classroom, pulling out her work, her emails to Liz, complete with timestamps and dates. She was not going to let her fail her. She wouldn’t let Liz win.

“Ms. Henley, could I talk to you for a moment,” she said once the last student was out of the classroom. Ms. Henley looked at her, somewhat disappointed, and she wondered if she had heard the rumors. If the rumor mill had gotten to the administration yet.

“Yes, of course. Comment puis-je t’aider Lucita?” Her tone was detached, less friendly than it usually was. Lucita swallowed.

“Um, well, I wanted to hand in my part of the project. I noticed that Elizabeth didn’t include any of my participation.”

“Excuse me?”

She handed over the small pack of her notes, of her designs, of everything she did Liz believed she deleted. As if she only had copies on her flash drive. Lucita always had backups.

“Yes, my contribution. These are all the emails I sent to Liz, everything I did that she didn’t include in the project. I…you can see why I was blindsided during the presentation. I just didn’t want you to think I didn’t do anything.”

Ms. Henley took the pack from her, eyes wide. “Luci, thank you. I’ll review these over the break and base your final grade on this.” Her eyes were warm again when she looked at her. “Have a good spring break, Lucita.”

She smiled at her and left the classroom where Jason was waiting for her, ready to escort her to her next class. “So, how’d it go?”

“She accepted my work. She said she’ll base my grade on all that, not the presentation.” She let out a sigh of relief. “At least that’s one problem solved.”

“It’ll get better.” He grabbed her hand. It was bad form, she knew, walking with him, holding his hand. But everyone already thought she was a slut, so who cared. She held hands with Blake, Silvia, and Olivia too. She felt safer being attached to someone, especially after the other day when a guy shoved her into the wall. Thank god Blake had been there (words she never thought she would say). He had punched the guy in the face.

Ever since Francis had sent out those pictures, school had been unbearable. She wanted nothing more than for every day to just end. She was glad her mother knew and let her take a different bus home with her friends instead of forcing her to ride the same one Francis took.

“I wish it would just end, ya know.”

“I know.” Together, they walked to class. Thankfully, not everyone was awful to her. Samantha offered her a friendly ear, and so did Natalia. And then there were Samantha’s friends and Natalia’s friends who listened to the truth, who stood by her, even those who didn’t know her that well.

After all this, at least she knew who her true friends were.

“Do you need anyone to wait after school with you?” asked Jason. Rebecca had been right about keeping secrets, only hurting other people. So she had told everyone everything. The drama with her family, with her mom, with her dad, her self-harm, losing her virginity to Matthew, and the fact that she was manic-depressive.

It was nice to have a name to what was wrong with her. It gave her something to latch onto instead of being confused constantly. Now, she could face her reflection. Now she could see herself for what she was: just a girl and nothing more.

It was nice.

“I don’t think so, but…If it’s not too much trouble, I feel safer with the rest of you around.”

He nodded, understanding. “All right. We’ll be at the front gate waiting for you.”

The day passed like any other day. Slurs were thrown at her, and guys tried to touch her in the hallway like she was nothing, like she was less than. She tried not to let it bother her and kept her head held up, but some days were harder than others.

Thank god for therapy.

However, when she got there, Ms. Enno looked less than pleased.

“Luci, please sit.”

Swallowing, Luci took her usual seat. Ms. Enno looked…disappointed.

“Is everything okay?”

Ms. Enno let out a heavy sigh. “Lucita, it has come to the administration’s attention that some pictures are going around school. Would you care to tell me about them?”

“I…those pictures are fake.”

“Lucita, I need you to tell me about them. This is important. They are talking about suspending you—”

“What! No! I didn’t do anything wrong. Ms. Enno, please, you have to believe me. I…it was Francis Rivera.” She looked at Ms. Enno, staring at her sternly, then told her everything. She was so tired of telling everyone everything. She just wanted this one thing to go away.

When she was done, Ms. Enno sat back in her chair. “What he did wasn’t right, Luci. We try to have a zero-tolerance policy here. Now, while we can’t prove it’s not you in the photos, we can at least remove part of the problem.”

Lucita stared at her, confused. “What do you mean?”

“What Mr. Rivera did is inexcusable. It is harassment, and spreading photos such as those is a felony. He will be expelled, effective immediately. Now, that doesn’t completely solve the problem, does it?”

Luci shook her head. “No.”

“What happened wasn’t your fault. Know that. You didn’t lead him on. You didn’t throw yourself at him. Saying no should have been enough. Too much has happened, so we can’t press charges, but we can get him out of the school. I will get him out of the school. You’ll have to deal with the lies and contempt. Have you spoken to your mother?”

“Yes. I…I told her everything.”

“Okay. That’s good. I’m glad.” Ms. Enno took a deep breath. “I’ll be here when things get tough, know that. No matter what happens, I am on your side.”

Lucita nodded. “Okay. Thank you.” Her voice was small, but there was a glimmer of hope inside her. Francis would be gone. Another problem was solved. At least partially. Things were finally starting to look up.

Later, when she got home, her mother greeted her with a smile. She told her mother about what had happened and about what was going to happen with French and Francis.

“Good, that boy deserves much worse. Oh, before I forget, I have a surprise for you.” From her purse, she pulled out a cell phone box. “I spoke to your grandmother. I didn’t tell her everything, but I gave her enough information. She had the phone shipped to my office.”

Luci stared at the box, afraid to touch it. She had been without a cell phone for so long that she didn’t know what to do now.

“Mom, thank you.”

“She still had the sim card, so she had them transfer all the information to this new one. You have the same number, and all your contacts should be there. I even made sure that it was fully charged.”

Luci gingerly took the box, opening it to see a handwritten note from her grandmother telling her she loved her. Powering it on, she opened WhatsApp and sent out one glorious text to everyone who mattered:

I HAVE A PHONE AGAIN!

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