Free Choosing Sides by Treasure Hernandez

waiting a couple minutes for it to heat up. She lit her cigarette and then quickly closed the door and took her place back on the street to wait for her ride.
    The girl looked Halleigh up and down and noticed her disheveled appearance. “Damn, girl, what happened to you?”
    â€œYou don’t even want to know,” Halleigh replied, blowing hot air from her mouth into her hands.
    â€œYou waiting for a ride or something?” The girl puffed her cigarette.
    â€œNo. I don’t know what I’m doing. My boyfriend is locked up. They talking about he has to wait until Monday to get a bail set.” Halleigh looked defeated. “Even then, I don’t know how I’m going to come up with that. He’s in all of this mess because of me, trying to look out for me. I don’t know what to do.” Halleigh’s hands dropped to her sides as the rain washed her tears away.
    â€œWhere you stay?”
    Halleigh looked around. “Right now, where I stand. I just need a place to think. I have to figure out what I’m gon’ do.”
    â€œWell, it’s colder then a bitch out here,” the girl commented. “You ain’t gon’ figure nothing out waiting outside, especially in this cold-ass rain.” She sucked her teeth. “What’s your name?”
    â€œHalleigh.”
    â€œI’m Mimi.” She noticed that Halleigh was shivering and took pity on the girl. “Look, girl, you can crash at my spot if you need to. At least for the night. My daddy will probably be able to help you out too. He can help you get your boy out of jail if you want him to.”
    Halleigh didn’t know Mimi from the man on the moon, but as of now, she had officially run out of options. She figured that anything would be better than being on the streets, so she decided to accept Mimi’s offer. “You sure your daddy won’t mind?”
    Mimi smirked and looked Halleigh up and down and then licked her lips. “Nah, he won’t mind, trust me.”
    Halleigh stood next to Mimi on the street as they waited for Mimi’s ride to pick them up. She didn’t want to seem like a charity case, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go. For a moment she thought about going to Nikki’s house. Nikki had a single mother too, but her mother was more strict on Nikki than Halleigh’s mother was on her. Nikki had the type of mother who made phone calls to make sure a situation was kosher. Halleigh couldn’t go and stay for two nights at Nikki’s without raising suspicion. Besides, she didn’t want Nikki to know about the disasters that had happened to her and to Malek. She knew that, underneath, Nikki had envied their relationship, and she would be glad to know all their plans had been shipwrecked.
    Malek was locked up, so of course, staying with him wasn’t an option. And her mother was so strung-out that she had sacrificed her relationship with her daughter just to get high. Halleigh knew that she would never walk into her mother’s house again. There was no repairing their relationship. I hate her, Halleigh thought, feeling bombarded with mixed emotions of hatred, anger, and disgust for her mother.
    Mimi paced up and down Saginaw Street puffing on her cigarette. She kept looking up and down the block to see if her ride was nearing. She looked down at the girl that she had befriended and could tell that she was carrying a large burden on her shoulders. “Here, hit this. It’ll calm your nerves.” Mimi offered Halleigh a drag of her Newport.
    Halleigh shook her head. “I don’t smoke.”
    Mimi shrugged her shoulders and took a long pull of the nicotine as she continued to pace back and forth, her silver stilettos that laced up her slim legs clicking back and forth. She wore a short silver halter dress, and her hair was braided straight to the back, her extensions causing it to fall right above her butt. Baby hair rested along