You've Got Another Thing Coming

Three other rooms were entered before I sat down in a small corner and felt remarkably hopeless. After the Scrubs-incident I stumbled upon a room full of turkeys, another room full of spiders; and the third room was filled to the brim with turkeys in cages, guarded by spiders.
This place was in alarming need of a Men in Black II sort of gun.

I held my face in my hands, feeling utter despair practically radiate off my huddled self.
As I wallowed in self-pity, someone laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Callie?” the deep, melodic voice of Cherokee rang out very close to my ear.

I jumped about a mile, hitting my head hard on something even harder, which turned out to be Cherokee’s chin.

“Geesus!” we both cried out, rubbing our wounded spots and wincing away from each other.

“What are you doing?” I asked, pettish about the sore bump on my head, and largely over-protective of it.

Cherokee glared at me and touched his chin gently, flinching wildly as he did so.
“I was going about, minding my own business,” he snapped, “when I just happened to walk into a cry baby in a corner!”

I glared back at him. If looks could kill, he’d have a huge head-ache by now.

“I’m not a cry baby!” I muttered defensively, my eyes downcast towards my feet where large specks of salty water splattered my outfit. I quickly moved to cover up the evident evidence by turning around and facing the opposite wall.

“Yeah, well,” I heard Cherokee murmur. “Whatever.”

His awesome ability to come up with glorious comeback lines astounded me to a point where I had to stifle a laugh and bend over slightly. I tried to disguise my giggles as a coughing fit, but apparently I sounded like a pig choking to death on a pip-squeak toy.
Immediately, the hand landed on my shoulder again, and I jumped. This time, though, Cherokee was prepared and stepped away in the nick of time.

I spun around and faced him, my eyes burning huge, angry holes into the fabric of his shirt. I titled my head upward in order to get a better look at him.

“Shrink,” I ordered him suddenly. He stared down at me, startled.

“Excuse me?” he asked politely, his pretty face contorted into a pretty mask of confusion.

“You’re too tall,” I accused. “Shrink!”

His eyes met mine with a humoured, yet slightly annoyed, gleam; however, he chose to back away from the closeness of our personal bubble.

“I suppose that is just a matter of perspective,” he told me as he back-stepped, spreading his arms out. “Do I still look too tall?”

I continued to glare at him, even though I now could see his entire frame without breaking my neck from the effort.

“Yes,” I replied, childishly holding on to my prejudiced opinion. I then paused a second. “…You’re too calm!”

Again, Cherokee looked startled. “Is that a bad thing?”

If the ‘if looks could kill’-rule still applied, he’d be in a coma by now. Either that, or very dizzy and nauseated.
Suspiciously, I began to walk out of my corner and slowly circle the tall man before me. He craned his neck in order to still keep me within eye-sight, but I kept well out of reach.

“If I had told you anything like this before,” I began, “you’d have me put on a skewer and roast me over an open fire.”

His green eyes never left mine, and I could see a slight understanding beginning to form underneath the thick set of blonde hair.

“If any man”, I stressed that word, “would have told you anything that could even remotely be considered an insult – as, let’s say, he’d tell you your socks don’t match – you’d be furious to the point of spontaneous combustion.”

It was now his turn to focus on the usage of the old saying ‘if looks could kill’, and I was suddenly very happy to know that this saying didn’t apply to real life. However, if this place that I was currently in was ‘real life’ or not, could be discussed...

“You want me to be angry?” he asked me through clenched teeth, looking so furious I was afraid that my previous statement was actually going to become the real deal.

“I want you to not be hypocritical,” I told him sternly, much more confidence in my voice than in my knees, which trembled so much I was quite sure I was going to collapse very soon.

“I am not being hypocritical!” he growled, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Then stop treating me like you actually care about me!” I shouted.

As soon as I heard myself say that, I knew it was the wrong thing to blurt out, and the wrong person to blurt it out to.

Cherokee’s face fell, and all the rage, all the tension and anger was put aside for a second or two to show nothing but pure shock.
Then, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, he composed his face. His green eyes went blank and unemotional – cold like emeralds.

“What ever gave you the impression I cared?” he wondered calmly, his monotone nonchalance ripping through me with its sharp claws.

I stood there, motionless as Cherokee turned on me – in double meaning – and exited the room through one of the many doors which led into the unknown.