The Unstoppable Zuri

No Way Out

"Uh-oh," Tricia said under her breath.

    I got out of my seat and walked into the hallway with Mr, Jay, right as the bell rang. Everyone was already in their classrooms, so it was just us. I swallowed a lump in my throat. I'd been in Mr. Jay's room for these past three years, but we'd never talked alone before. He closed the door to our classroom behind me.

    I knew he was going to ask about Elliot, but what was I supposed to say? I could feel the sweat from my palms getting all over the handles of my crutches. I wanted to compose myself, but knew that I couldn't. My eyes were probably still red from crying to Tricia.

    "There's a lot going on today. Everything's fine," I said before he could even open his mouth. "Just stupid couple stuff. If it even matters, because I'm pretty sure we're broken up at this point. But that's okay!" I tried to force a smile. "Sometimes couples just don't work out."

    "And sometimes there's more to the story, isn't there?" he asked. I bit down on my lip. "He said you two had a really bad fight, and I just want to make sure everything's okay."

    It really isn't, Mr. Jay. I know him grabbing me wasn't right. I'm sure he knows that too, but he did it anyway.

    I stepped back and used my crutches to steady myself. I was suddenly feeling really off-balance. I was so worried that falling backwards on my butt for the zillionth time would hurt the baby, but even using my crutches hurt my shoulders.

    "We just had a bad fight."

    "He told me you're expecting," Mr. Jay said. I froze. "Is that true?"

    "Yes," I said, looking at the floor. "He said it was my fault and that I needed to get an abortion, which I'm not gonna, by the way, and he said he wants nothing to do with me or the baby."

    "Did anything else happen?"

    Yes. Yes it did. I should tell him, shouldn't I? But I'm just so embarrassed, especially since my dad has so many doubts about him, and I defended Elliot tooth and nail to everyone. He gets a free pass on everything...maybe just this one time he should get in trouble? Maybe he'll actually learn something.

    "He just moved me out of the way. It's no big deal. I really should've found a better way to tell him I was pregnant. He was really upset."

    "Pushing someone is definitely a big deal, Zuri. It doesn't matter if he was mad or not. You're never allowed to push someone on school property. It counts as physical aggression. He could've seriously injured you and the baby if you fell. This is really serious. Are you hurt at all?"

    "I mean, I can get hurt just by getting out of bed the wrong way. You know how my muscles are," I said, laughing nervously and looking anywhere but at him, my eyes darting around the bright orange lockers of K-Wing.

    He gasped. "Zuri, what happened?"

    "He just...he grabbed me by the shoulders, squeezed really hard, and kind of moved me out of the way. I bruise super duper easily so it really doesn't matter and I'm sore in a lot of places all the time so it's totally fine."

    "I can see that it really isn't. How about this, we'll go to the nurse and you can get some ice, maybe take a breather from Elliot for a bit."

    "No, it's okay, seriously—"

    "I'll go grab your backpack," he said.

He got my backpack for me and I put it on. I thought he would go back to the classroom, but instead he walked me all the way to the nurses office, whispering something to Miss Lopez when I sat down with my ice. She came back into the room, typed something on her computer, and then gave me a nice smile.

"Does that feel a little better?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.

My eyes wandered around the sterile-smelling nurse's office. I didn't know whether or not I could have my phone out in here, since it wasn't an actual classroom. How long was I supposed to stay in here with this ice pack anyway? I guess at least until third period was over and Elliot and I would be going separate ways for the rest of the day. Good thing it was almost the weekend. I needed so many breaks from this place.

"Do you want to go home for the day? I can call your dad if you'd like," Miss Lopez asked.

Oh hell yes! Get me out of here. I had so much stuff on TikTok, primarily in the booktok sphere, to catch up on.

"That would be great," I said.

"Okay. No problem."

She dialed the phone on her desk and called my dad. He'd be here in a half hour. I was thrilled to pieces, especially when Miss Lopez said I could sit back and relax on my phone. I opened up TikTok and turned the volume down, starting to watch the long amount of videos on my for you page, one of which was the cooking video Emmi made last night.

"And you see that right there? That's the perfect dumpling! But I dunno, let's see what my Nainai thinks!" The camera cut over to Bai, her grandmother that I'd met several times. Emmi handed her the bowl and asked, "What do you think Nainai?"

"Very good!" said Bai, giving a thumbs-up to the camera like she did in all the other videos.

I liked the video and gasped. Nearly two-thousand likes? Emmi was seriously blowing up on the internet. It was crazy to think of her being so shy at school, but so vibrant and outgoing on TikTok.

"Zuri, you're good to head downstairs. Your dad is in the front office," said Miss Lopez.

"Awesome. Thanks!" I said, handing the ice pack back to her.

I got up, walked to the elevator, and went down to the front office. But when I went inside, my dad wasn't waiting there. I walked up to Jean, the secretary who was sitting at the front desk. She was typing like a madwoman, but looked up once she saw me.

"Um, I'm supposed to be meeting my dad, Jacques Le Fleur? They said he was down here to pick me up."

"Oh, yes...he's in the office with—"

I nearly jumped through the room when I saw the door to the principal's office open. Mr. Peterman, our guidance-counselor-turned-principal, was standing in the doorway. I saw my dad sitting in one of the chairs by his desk.

"Hey Zuri, you can come on in," said Principal Peterman.

What now? I just wanted to go home and hide under my bed with my phone.