I had only been waiting on this chair in the reception hall of the community center for a while.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" she asked, lowering herself slightly and looking me in the eye, a faint smile on her lips. "Finally, someone who looked me in the eye", I thought, almost amazed at the situation. People almost never looked me in the eye. Not even my own parents, busy in the kitchen, doing some work, or staring at the computer screen. My own father himself never looked away to greet me, when I used to come back home from high school. Was I too old to receive any attention from him now ? He had turned away from me when I pasted childhood. I was probably no longer cute enough for his taste and I had become a burden, revealing the reality that he had actually never wanted children in his life.

One day, when I was rebelling for the umpteenth time against his passive-aggressive attitude and his contempt, he told me that if I wasn't satisfied, I could leave. It must have been burning on his lips for a very long time to tell me that. He must have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to spit those words in my face, hidden in the shadow of his manipulations, so to keep my mother and the house all to himself. So, that's what I did, I left that house. A small bag under my arm and 30 euros in my pocket, I took the first train to the capital !

Yet often, when people looked at me, it was as if they were not really paying attention, as if their gaze was stumbling upon the surface of my face like a fly stumbling upon a window. Their gaze wasn't penetrating, and it was a safe bet that they saw only eyes, a nose and a mouth, without ever feeling what was beyond.

I mumbled something so that she wouldn't see how much this small attention disturbed me: "Yeah, why not ?"

"Sorry, I didn't understand your answer." She continued, still staring at me. Her tone was a little firmer, but her smile had widened. I could read in it a kindness that wasn't feigned, something pure that had no interest in the matter. And this firmer tone that she had taken sounded like an invitation to pull myself together and get my wits back. I mustn't have been the most lost person in this social center, nor the person in the most difficulty. I had European papers, health, youth and I wasn't the stupidest or the ugliest either ! I was going to get through this in the end...

This lady was surely used to haphazard answers and lies. She must have seen many unstable or strange people pass by... But it was as if she made a point of honor not to trifle with clarity.

“Yes, I would like that, please,” I replied with my best smile, straightening up in my chair.

"Perfect", I'll come back and bring it to you."

A coffee. It may not have been much, but presented like that, it already warmed my heart a little. I felt like I already existed a little more, in this world. A coffee and a lesson in good manners. That's how my life started again.