Without The Words

Chapter 12

"Good afternoon, Poppy." Mr. Lee acknowledged me as I walked into the classroom the next day. Mr. Lee's scent of peppermint paddies and mint clouded around him. I inhaled unnoticeably and relished in it's perfection. I nodded almost shamefully and hurriedly made my way to my desk in the back.

"The meet is still on, just in case you were wondering," he said to me, his voice echoing in the almost empty classroom. Students were slowly coming in. I nodded to indicate that I heard him, and we both looked out the window, the pelting rain the only noise in the humidity-filled room.

Today was the day of the meet. The day I would run around an unfamiliar trail with unfamiliar faces, and to make matters worse, it would be raining out. There was the possibility that I could have an anxiety attack, which would only make everything a thousand times more petrifying. Instead of dwelling on everything that could go wrong, I focused on Mr. Lee who was now opening up a book at his desk, flipping through the pages with his long and perfectly shaped fingers.

His black button-down coat matched perfectly with his black-rimmed glasses. He slid his glasses to the tip of his nose and looked up at the class that was now full of students. I hadn't even realized how quick the room filled up, due to the fact that my attention was so glued on Mr. Lee that everything around me became nothing but background.

"How many of you know about the Holocaust?" Mr. Lee asked. He began to slowly remove himself from his desk in the left corner of the front of the room. Most of the students responded by lazily raising their hands. Some of the girls perked up and sat straighter in their seats, flipping their hair back and puffing their chests out. The attraction was now as obvious as ever, but Mr. Lee payed no attention to it.

"I think it's important that you all notice the connection," he began. "How does the Holocaust relate to our everyday lives?"

As he said this, he started slowly pacing around the front of the room, left to right. My eyes followed his every movement. The students remained silent.

"Okay, since nobody wants to participate, I have something else in mind," he countered. "History class is not just about the facts. It's not just about our past, it's about those moments in the past that relive in our century. What did the Holocaust deal with?"

A boy raised his hand. Mr. Lee nodded in his direction. "It dealt with discrimination." The boy said shyly while playing with a long strip of hair that always seemed to fall into his eyes.

"Exactly," Mr. Lee said. "And what problems do we face today?"

"Discrimination," a student called out.

"And that is indeed the issue in our society. We still discriminate. Of course, we don't participate in death camps and abolishments anymore, but is it not obvious that we still categorize people by their gender, their race, their ethnicity, and something as simple as the way they dress or the way they speak?"

"Why do people still discriminate?" A girl asked.

"You tell me, Amber," Mr. Lee said. "Why do they? Do you?"

"No," she said, blowing a strand of blond her out of her face. She nervously played with her fingers.

"Yes you do," a popular-looking boy muttered. I had no idea who he was, but his baggy jeans and dark brown hair slicked up only in the front evinced more than words could say.

Mr. Lee put a hand through his hair. "Most of you do it. We've all done it hopefully only a few times in our lifetime, but that doesn't make it okay either. Adolf Hitler, the monster behind the whole process of the Holocaust, decided to hate on Jewish people for unnecessary reasons. Some say Eduard Bloch was a factor in Hitler's antisemitism. Anybody know why?"

"Wasn't he the doctor?" A student in the back called out.

"He was," Mr. Lee responded. "In fact, he was the doctor of Klara Hitler, Adolf Hitler's mother. Klara died of breast cancer, and it is believed that Hitler blamed it on Eduard Bloch."

"But wasn't Hitler Jewish? Why did he hate Jewish people if he was a Jew himself?"

"There are only theories that Hitler was Jewish. Although he may have been some percent Jewish, he was raised in a family with no Jewish tradition whatsoever, nor did he have any Jewish family. There are other reasons that surround Hitler's hatred towards Jewish people. The fact that he may have been Jewish himself did not occur to anybody or anything because it was such a small detail. Antisemitism was already widespread, so Hitler only made the hatred evolve. Many believed that Jewish people were the reason for the loss of WWI and that communists and Jewish people betrayed Germany. Since this idea was already spreading, it was easy enough to think that eliminating all Jewish people would solve the problem. Not only that, but a lot of Jewish people were successful in business, financially and were a convenient scapegoat. That sparked a jealousy in Hitler and the other individuals who discriminated."

The discussion continued and everybody, including myself, attentively listened with an interest. I was not one for history, but Mr. Lee pulled off the subject well and that itself sparked a heed in me.

When the period ended, everybody left with a buzz of conversation about the discussion.

I was distracted during lunch, eating only a bite of a sandwich. Butterflies slammed around in my stomach when a thought came to mind. Mr. Lee had mentioned that I could rest in his classroom for periods seven and eight. And that's exactly what I did when seventh period arrived.

Anticipation built inside me, and my shaking hands were more than enough proof. I was always shaking around Mr. Lee, though. It was a major perk of having social anxiety, sarcasm intended.

I reached his classroom and instead of walking right in, which is what the usual person would have done, my anxiety pushed me past his door. I stopped a few inches past his door and stood for a few seconds, taking a deep breath that did not ease my discomfort in the slightest bit. Students walked past me with curious eyes, and even teachers would walk past with clear disapproval. Seconds became minutes and I eventually started to walk back in the other direction to the lunch room, defeat clouding around me like a sickly fog.

"You don't have to be shy around me, Poppy."

His voice made me stop in my steps. It made my heart skip too many beats to count. It made my cheeks flush and my breath to get sucked out of my lungs, as if someone had punched me in the chest.

I turned around slowly, until eventually his beautiful form came into view. He was leaning casually against the corridor wall, his arms crossed and his right leg resting over his left. His curly hair looked as if he'd been pushing his hand through it more than a few times. His eyes were still on my own complexion, waiting for whatever reaction that was going to explode out of me.

How could I have not known he was there? Was he there the whole time? This was the second time I was oblivious to his presence, which seemed more than unlikely because his presence itself caused my body to jolt into an electrical state. Everything he did pulled me into his abyss of pure attraction.

He raised his eyebrows and gestured towards his classroom door with his right hand, a smirk forming on his lips.

"Come on in," he said quietly. "I promise I don't bite."

Was it bad that I wanted him to bite?