Heroin

This place smells like coffee and tears. The room looked like an unfurnished teachers lounge, gray walls and white tile floors. It was completely empty with the exception of a flimsy coffee table and a circle of uncomfortable plastic chairs. I scanned the peoples’ faces, only seeing coldness and pain. They were all older than me by at least 20 years. As I entered the force field of plastic all the dead eyes once fixed on the floor shift to me. Why did I come here alone?
Sitting down felt like walking into class late in the middle of a test: unwelcoming and numb. After a few seconds of seat adjusting people lost interest in me and their eyes sunk down to the scuffs and cracks on the floor once again. The deafening silence made it near impossible to focus on what I had rehearsed to say. Before I could recite it again in my head a mousey pale man with a comb-over slowly stood up, knees shaking.
“Okay…who wants to get started?” The silence seemed to amplify for an infinite minute as he searched out for brave souls. The moment he and I locked eyes I knew what was going to follow soon after.
“How about you, miss?” Instead of eyes this time a squad of faces turned to me, no cracks in the floor could save me now. I slowly stood up and strained my voice enough for it to become audible.
“Hi, I’m Amber and…my mother is addicted to heroin.”