is there a legit free way to use microsoft word

Students and teachers can often get the full desktop version free through their school, sign in with the school email on Microsoft's education page and see if it's included. And if you only need to open and edit .docx files, Google Docs and LibreOffice both handle them fine.

Yes. Word on the web is free, you just sign in with a free Microsoft account (an outlook or hotmail address works) and use it in the browser. Files save to OneDrive and you can download them as .docx. It's missing some of the heavier desktop features, things like advanced mail merge and some macro stuff, but for writing, formatting, comments and track changes it's completely fine. The phone apps are free too for basic editing.