Misty stands on the corner outside the 7-Eleven every night. She can’t remember why she started, but she can’t stop. Not now. She needs the money, and this is the only thing she knows how to do anymore.

She waves at cars, they stop, she gets paid (if she’s lucky), and she goes back to the corner. It’s always the same routine. Wave, stop, work, money. It’s the way it’s always been, it’s the way it is, and it’s the way it always will be.

Misty feels no remorse as she slides into fishnet tights and leather miniskirts. She feels no guilt as she puts on layer after layer of red lipstick and cheap black eyeliner. She feels no desire for anything more than what she has, because she knows that it’s all she will ever have.

Only when the police pile her into a cruiser and haul her off to jail for the night does Misty feel any sort of doubt. She wonders, during the long, lonely hours, if what she does is wrong. She considers stopping. Sometimes, she even promises herself that she will turn her life around.

She never keeps her promises. The next morning, after the long, painful night in jail, she goes back to her apartment and rests, getting ready for another night on the corner. She doesn’t question it again.

She has friends, girl (and guys) who work their own corners and blocks. She doesn’t see them too often; they are competition, after all. But occasionally, when they get caught, Misty will end up in the same cell as a friend. It’s always nice to have a shoulder to cry on.

Misty doesn’t like to think about what life was like when she first started selling, but if she did, she would remember the first time she put on the tight clothes she wore, averting her eyes from the mirror. She would remember putting on eyeliner, her hand shaking so much that she was in danger of poking an eye out. She would remember walking down the street, looking at the ground as she shyly waved at passing cars.

The first time a car stopped, Misty ran away at the last minute, the businessman that pulled her over yelling after her for being a “tease”. The first time she actually got up the courage to work, she went straight to her apartment and stood in the shower for hours, trying her hardest to wash the tears, the guilt, the layer of grime that she could feel but not see, off of her shaking body. She couldn’t bring herself to spend the money she made for weeks, choosing instead to starve in silence.

She soon got used to waving, to doing her job, to spending the money on what she needed. She doesn’t over think it now. She simply stands on the corner outside the 7-Eleven, unable to imagine change that will never come. Her corner is all she has.