Vice [h.s]

VI

New cover!!!

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Tatum's POV

*Two weeks after the party*

What in the complete fuck happened?

It's been a little over two weeks since my house party and I still haven't processed what happened between Harry and I. Between the alcohol, the music, the nostalgia that the night brought, and Harry's intoxicating presence, I found my head in a whirlwind of emotions that I don't think I even began to process until the days following.

Perhaps what I can't get out of my head the most is the feeling of his lips on mine. That feeling was something I don't even know where to begin to describe. I don't even remember feeling that with Derek. I don't understand. The only conclusion that I can draw is that I felt that feeling because it was wrong. He is bad. Bad in general, bad for me. We, as humans, are instinctively drawn towards adrenaline, which means we are also instinctively drawn towards things that are bad for us. Because a lot of the time, it's the bad things that make us feel the most alive.

Derek was good. He was pure. He was so good in his heart, your picture-perfect man; the man you could only hope to one day make your husband. He was the man you would be excited to bring home to meet your mom. And for Harry, he is the complete opposite. Which excites me and terrifies me all at the same time.

That feeling of adrenaline comes from a fear of the unknown. When you go bungee jumping, you have no idea whether that rope will be able to withstand the pressure of the Earth's gravitational pull against your body, so you cling onto that fear and rename it adrenaline. When you sneak out of your house as a teenager for the first time, you ride that high of excitement, when in reality it is the fear of getting caught, or not knowing if you'll be in trouble when you get home, that propels you through the night. It is not excitement; it is fear, mystery, inevitable dread.

This is Harry. I know absolutely nothing about this man, and I don't think I will ever know much, but I can only make sense of the feeling I got that night by labeling it as adrenaline. I had grown so used to comfort. Derek was comfortable; he was home, he was quite literally sunshine and rainbows. Harry is the alley way that you avoid when you're walking the streets alone at night. Harry is that feeling of holding onto your purse as you walk past a questionable person on the corner, eyeing you from underneath their hoodie. He is absolutely everything that should be avoided, should be repulsive, should give me a red flag to clutch my bag closer to my body as I walk past him.

However.

Why does he feel like the moment you step foot off of the ledge, before you realize the paralyzing fear of the uncertainty about whether the rope will be able to withstand your weight? Why does he feel like the moment you open your bedroom window to sneak out at night, before you actually go through the pane? Why does he feel like the moment you step foot out of the bar, before you even notice that there's a man standing on the corner, eyeing you and your bag with bad intentions? Why does he feel like the high before the fall? The dangerous, paralyzing fall that you can't even begin to worry about because the high is too strong?

I reached that high, or at least the beginning of it, when his fingers stretched around the diameter of my throat, his fingertips touching at the base of my neck. The railing of my balcony slightly giving way as he pressed me into it. The overwhelming awareness of his height towering over me, leaving me vulnerable, a position I'm not familiar or comfortable with. The taste of skin and whiskey. Watching him grab his blazer, which had been discarded on the floor of my balcony, and leave out of my front door.

So I can only begin to wonder, where is the fall?

"Tatum?" I am brought out of my thoughts by a familiar, nasally voice. Fucking Jahn.