I have been searching for your touch,
Unlike any touch I’ve ever known.

Full day working on photo shoots, press conferences, business matters and dealing with fans are enough to make me feel exhausted and grumpy all day. It is not because I am tired, thoroughly but I am not in a mood. I am aware that my bodyguard and my manager are trying to cheer me up by making some jokes despite the depression and tiredness but they never succeed. Only after five seconds I will yell at their faces and they will immediately shut their mouth for the rest of the journey to our next destination.

Time on my watch shows 12:48 in the middle of the night which means I have been working non-stop for like 20 hours. Throughout the day, I didn’t stop for a sleep – except those in the car – and I hadn’t taken anything to fill up my stomach since lunch though I don’t feel like eating at all. I lost my appetite ever since two weeks ago.

The environment in the car was so tense and awkward while we are heading to my home. My big bungalow house with five out of seven rooms are vacant. The only occupied rooms are mine which is on the second floor and my maid’s on the first floor nearby the kitchen.

I notice my driver keeps glancing at me through the rear-view mirror to check up on me. I, on the other hand, keep my gaze outside the tainted window, keeping myself busy by watching the busy city with people making out here and there especially at the bus station or while waiting for the traffic for pedestrians.

God, are you testing me?

I thought the road to my house is still long so I my mind wonder in a very deep in thought when I hear my driver calls me and says something to me. I don’t know what that is but I hear a voice that sounds like a talk. Later that moment, I feel a light nudge on my shoulder and I snap my head towards my manager, Ben, on my left.

“What?!” I yell, glaring at him.

For a second, I see a frighten look on his face. And I immediately feel guilty for my sudden burst and I do feel like wanted to change my angry expression but I can’t. I feel like my eyebrows are permanently sewed downward on my temple with an infinite frown. I can’t stretch it.

“Sorry, man,” Ben says, apologising to me although it was not his fault. “We arrive at your house,” he tells me, pointing something with his forefinger to my right.

I turn my head to look at what Ben is pointing at and I see my front door with my maid loyally waiting for me at the step. She is wearing her casual outfit which doesn’t look like a maid at all. Her dark blonde hair is in a bun and her eyes are tiredly staring at me who is still in the car.

Oh, my beautiful yet annoying maid.

I hate it when she does this to me – waiting for me at the front door like I am a naughty young boy who does something wrong and a punishment is waiting for me. Seriously, I don’t need anyone to look after me because I am a grown-up. Although my condition is not promising but I still can take care of myself. Proof is I hadn’t tried to kill myself and I am still alive.

“Oh,” I mutter, turning back to my manager. “See you later, Ben. Good night,” I say. “Thank you, Buddy. Drive carefully,” I tell my driver, patting his shoulder before I open the car’s door and hop out of the car. I don’t turn back to wave my friend a good-bye when I hear the car leaving me and my house. I walk straight ahead, looking at my maid blankly.

“It’s late. Why aren’t you bed?” I ask her. She looks at me with full of concern look yet doesn’t reply my question.

Knowing what she probably thinks that I am home, drunk, I sigh. “Go to bed,” I tell her but more to ordering her so she wouldn’t follow me until I enter my bedroom.

“Do you need anything before you go to bed, sir?” she asks me as I begin walking deeper inside my house heading towards a flight of chairs.

“No,” I reply with a frustration sigh. I climb up the stairs with my hands inside my jacket’s pockets although it’s not cold at all in my house.

I throw my head back, held my chin up and slump my shoulder lazily as I continue climbing the stairs, ignoring my maid until I reach my bedroom. I take off my jacket and throw myself on my bouncy bed lying flatly on my stomach.

I burry the right side of my face into the pillow and close my right eye. Using the half-open left eye, I peek on the other side of my bed. I spread my arm on the cold surface, tracing the untouched sheet as my mind reminds me back of how nice it used to feel when Elizabeth was under my arm.

I can’t stop thinking about Elizabeth. I missed her so much. I missed seeing her waiting for me on the bed as I undress myself to get ready for bed. I missed the playful smile she would give me when I trace my fingers on her face and the playful smirk on her full lips while we were teasing each other. I missed the warmth sense that I always feel when I touch her. Not only biologically on my muscles but also the one that I feel at the pit of my stomach.

Elizabeth’s touch was so unique, intriguing and like a drug to my skin. Her touch was so unlike any other touch I have had ever felt with the women before her. None of my ex-girlfriends or one night stands gave me the strange beautiful feelings towards me and her effect drives me crazy. Elizabeth was undeniable. She was perfect. She was – is – everything that I want every day to be with me before I go to sleep. But now she’s gone. She’s gone with someone else because of my stupid, silly, unforgiveable mistake.

I never thought about you much,
‘Till I’m broken down and all alone.

I barely sleep for three hours yet I hear someone is knocking on my room door waking me up from my, thank Goodness, empty dream. I groan as I roll my body to my back to check on the time on the digital clock on my bedside table. With my blur vision, I manage to see a number 5 with a colon and another twin number that is 23.

I am still laying on my bed on top my stomach and about to drift off once again when I hear another knock on the door, this time louder that it sounds urgent.

“What?!” I snap loudly, in order to make the person behind that door to hear me.

“Sir, I am afraid you have to get up now. Your manager is-“ my maid’s sentence is interrupted by someone who barges into my room angrily like a gorilla.

“What the fuck?”

“Adam, wake up! You’re late for work!” Ben yells at me at the foot of my bed.

“It’s only, 5…” I trail off as I turn my head to look at the time once again, “It’s only 5:24!”

“Exactly! And you’re 24 minutes late!” Ben raises his voice, scolding me like he’s scolding his child who is late for school.

“What do you mean we’re late?” I ask him in confusion. I totally don’t remember about any early meeting that I have to attend.

“You have a meeting with your co-workers for your collections!” Ben tells me. “Gosh, how could you-“

“Shit!” I curse to myself. “I’ll be ready in ten,” I tell my manager as I clumsily get off of my bed, dragging the comforter on the floor with my leg until it reaches almost to my bathroom. At this moment, I am very thankful to myself that I didn’t change last night before I went to bed. So I am still in my jeans and grey t-shirt from the previous day.

In my bathroom, I only wash my face and brush my teeth before I get out and take another new and fresh plain white shirt in my dresser and get change. I don’t remember when I took off my shoes before I slept few hours ago but right now, I am putting it back on.

Ben and my maid watch my entire clumsy moves silently. They don’t say anything but I hear a low chuckle from my maid when I trip off couple of times and a sigh from Ben like he’s humiliated. After some time, I am finished and I stand straight in front of Ben and ask, “How many more times do we have?”

“One and a half hours,” Ben answers after he quickly calculated the remaining time we have.

“I am done. Let’s go,” I say as I grab my jacket that I previously put on my armchair.

My phone and my wallet are still on my jeans. So after I grab my jacket I follow Ben to exit my house, leaving my messy room to my maid.

Once I step outside of my house, I jog to the waiting car. No, it’s not mine nor Ben so I don’t know whose the car belongs to. I haven’t driven my own car ever since I split up with Elizabeth weeks ago because I nearly got captured by a police because I was driving while I was drunk. Since then, Ben hired Buddy for me and even himself to make it easier for us to go to work together.

~

I am currently in a big room, with glass wall surrounding me and a long table with more than 12 chairs around it placed it in the middle of the room. But the chairs are only occupied with not more than seven people including me and Ben. Out of seven people in the meeting room, four of them are women which I guess not younger than me when I see the crinkles on their forehands.

Those four women get to meet me once or twice in every month or sometimes so often regarding our collaboration work on my collections yet they are staring at me right through my soul, checking me out like we are in a disco bar.

Seriously, as much as I love women but do they have to look at me like that?

I know I used to flirt with women although they’re under the same building and no matter how old they are. I know I was a playboy. Key word: was. I am not now and they are making me uncomfortable with their trying-to-be-sexy-and-good-for-me look as if they are asking me to eat them.

But, heh, I don’t have any taste to any regular girls unless it’s Elizabeth.

Anyway, I know the purpose of the meeting they are handling is to discuss about new designs of my collections for Kmart. And I hear this from Ben where they want to hire about two to three new models to help me with this business. I know I should take part 99.9% of the meeting but I can’t. My mind can’t seem to take anything accept the thought of Elizabeth.

Oh, great! This womaniser is now consciously thinking about a particular woman that he shouldn’t think about her already.

Silly womaniser!

I never thought I will be thinking about her this loads. I mean, yes, I think about her a lot before we split up and I thought that was only because she was there every time I want her. Clearly, I never thought about her this much until I realise how broken and alone I am. It hurts so much

I wonder what Elizabeth is doing right now. Thinking about it makes me think if she ever thinks about me as much as I think about her. She’s obviously everything this womaniser needs but I believe if I crawl back to her, she wouldn’t have trust in me anymore.

*sighs*

I don’t know for how long I have been zoning out until I hear my boss, or let me address him as my business partner – please note that I hate being called as a worker – who sits at the end of the table alone, calling my name sternly. His voice is very rough and hoarse as if he’s having cough.

I turn to look at him and I notice his glare. In fact, Ben also gives me his most frightful look while the others only look at me curiously, as if they are waiting for an answer.

“Pardon?” I say as polite as I can to my business partner because I realise how I have been abandoning the meeting since from the start.

Ben and my partner exhale deeply with my sudden change of attitude before my partner, I assume, repeats what he said to me earlier,

“I was asking you if you agree we hire four new males and two new females’ model for Adam Levine Collections,” he seriously tells me, as if asking me to take this matter seriously. “Pictures are in that file.” He pointed his finger at a black thin file in front of me.

I glance at the file and say, “It’s okay. I trust your choice.”

I sound confident but deep inside I am not. Although me, myself, has nothing to do with between the models and my collections but I still want the perfect models for my collections. And for me, those perfect models are me and Elizabeth.

“Okay, then,” my partner says, nods his head once where at the same time, I see a hand that belongs to a woman in brown hair in front of me takes back the file. “What about the new designs?” my partner than asks.

I can’t pull up the decision that quickly when I am asked about my collections’ new designs. I don’t want to spoil my business so I have to think about it for a moment before I make up my mind. As much as I want to go back to my house and mourn for my grief, I cannot leave my work to someone else’s hand. I am too afraid to think I will not satisfy with the work they do.

“When do we start designing?” I ask, not particular to anyone in front of me.

“We can start right now if you’re free today,” one of my co-designers answers my question. She’s not the woman in brown hair who sits in front of me. This woman’s hair has a mixture of orange and red and looks like a sun that its flare is blaring and stinging my eyes.

I turn to my manager. “Ben?” I ask him, indirectly about my schedule.

Ben looks unknown to what I am referring to at first, but then he picks it up. “Oh.” His face brightens where his brows rise up to his forehead and his eyes are wide open. “I am sorry, but Adam has a radio interview at noon. I’ll check out his schedule once again later and will make it up to you,” that man tells the rest of the men and women professionally.

Though I don’t understand the meaning of love,
I do not mind if I die trying.

Interview…

Oh, I hate interviews! I always find myself answering the same question because the interviewers often ask me the same thing like that’s the first sentence they learned. I hate to answer the same question again and again because it hurts so much because I have to talk about someone that I barely see since I split up with her. I find it hard to adapt myself with my current situation and all the gossips. Although Elizabeth’s name is still alive in my ears and even inside of me, but I feel nothing except being upset whenever I have to tell the interviewer how my life have been since I am single.

Oh, wait! This womaniser has never been into a relationship before. At least a serious one until my last one.

Lying is my best talent since it’s the easiest way to hook up with a girl that catches my eyes. But now, my ‘talent’ eats myself. Now, I can lie to the interviewer saying that I am okay living with my own since I get used to with on and off relationship or splitting up but I can’t lie to my own tone of voice, my facial expression, my body gestures or even my sorrow feelings. I am so thankful that I am given small eyes so people will not easily read my feelings through the look on my eyes.

Throughout the radio interview I don’t manage to listen to every word the DJs say to me. And I only answer some of their random questions shortly like I don’t even have a mood to talk. They may or may not notice it but I hope they do. I am aware that they try to enlighten up the environment and the talk by adding some jokes but I don’t laugh. I only scoff when they talk about love.

Love…

Is this what they call it as ‘Love’? That you can’t go your day without thinking about the person that you missed seeing?

Is this what they call it as ‘Love’? That you wish you could do anything, even if the only way to get the person’s love back is to die in a volcano?

Took you for granted when you lifted me up.

“It was all my fault.”

I am not sure as to why I suddenly mumble that sentence to the microphone in front of my face while the DJs are chatting to each other. I am not sure what was I thinking to make my lips moved, saying those five words either. I am only on my full consciousness when I see the two DJs from the radio station are staring at me confusingly.

I glance at Ben who is standing with arm crossed on his chest behind the booth outside the studio. He looks at me sharply like he’s haunting me down. I see him clenching his jaws, holding himself down from barging into the studio room to punch me in the face. He makes me tell myself that he clearly heard what I said.

But is it my fault that I can’t control my emotion?

“I am sorry, Adam. Is there any confession you want to make?” one of the DJs bravely asks me.

Since he asks…

Yes! Yes, I have a confession to make, indeed! I want to confess that I am not happy with my current life, at all. I want to confess that I am a womaniser who surprisingly in love with a woman that I never thought I’d be in love with. I want to confess that it’s all my fault behind the reason why Elizabeth and I split up so media will no talk bad about her anymore. I can’t stand seeing the tabloids spreading rumours about her, seriously.

I also want to confess that I am wrong that I played with her heart because she could give everything that I want – not only good sex but she made me happy. Elizabeth made me feel alive with her charming laugh. She was there whenever I need her, whenever I need a hug. She would take care of me when I am sick and I missed her chicken soup very much.

To sum it all, Elizabeth knew what I want and what I hate to admit that I want. How she could make me feel like I am on cloud nine. Everything has in this woman. I cannot explain much more about her. She is perfect! So perfect than any woman that I met.

I realise that I Elizabeth shows me the true meaning of love.