Shawn

"How'd it go?" Amelia asked before I could even close the front door. She walked over to me and helped me out of my jacket, then kissed me.

"Good." I said. "The show was amazing but I didn't expect anything less. I saw all my old friends. It was pretty dope. I'm tired though. I forgot how much concerts take out of you." I said and headed for the bedroom. She was right behind me. I could feel her stare as I undressed and got comfortable. I sat down on the bed to slip into a pair of socks and glanced up at her.

"What up baby?" I stood to meet her gaze.

"Did you see her?"  She asked.

"Did I see who?" I responded and headed for the kitchen. "I'm starving baby." I said over my shoulder and opened the refrigerator.

"Dinner is in the oven." She said. "You never answered my question, did you see Janet tonight?"

"Baby it was a Janet Jackson concert." I responded. "So yes, I saw her." I said and took a bite of food.

"You know what I mean Shawnette." She said raising her voice at me.

"Why does it matter whether or not I saw her? We've talked about this before. You don't trust me." I said sitting my plate down.

"Its not a matter of trusting you Shawn, I don't trust her." She said.

"You don't know her." I said defensively.

"Neither do you anymore! Last time I checked I'm your wife and I should be able to be honest with you about how I feel." She said. "We promised that we'd never lie to each other Shawnette and I'm starting to feel like you're trying to avoid answering my question."

I hung my head. "Because I know you'll get mad."

"Try me." She said, folded her arms and leaned against the counter.

"Yes, I saw her tonight." I confessed.

"So what? Did you go back stage? Did you meet her in her dressing room, were you alone?" She started throwing out questions at me. I held my hands up.

"Baby, breathe, for a second and let me answer." I said calmly. She took a deep breath and nodded. "I did go backstage, where I saw her briefly before she had to go on stage, but once I got to the hotel..."

"Hotel?" She snapped. "See! That's why I didn't want you to go to that fucking concert!" She yelled.

I pulled out my phone. To show her the group text from Gil. "Neither of us knew babe. He asked me to meet him at his room but gave me his copy of Janet's room key. She was just as surprised as I was Amelia."  I turned and walked away leaving my food on the counter.

"That doesn't make me feel any better about you being alone with her!" She yelled at the back of my head as she followed me into the living room. I stopped and turned to face her. She looked so angry.

"Nothing happened. You know me better than this by now. We caught up and then I told her that I promise my wife I wouldn't stay out late and that I had to go." I said.

Her eyes softened . "You told her about us?" She asked.

I stepped in closer to her. "Honey, of course I did. Why would you think I'd want to keep it a secret. You're my world. You know this." She hugged me tight and laid her head against my chest.

"I'm sorry." She said.

"It's okay. We're good baby."

We got comfortable on the couch and talked for awhile. Amelia yawned and rubbed her eyes sleepily.

"Tired?" I asked.

She smiled and nodded. "Wanna come to bed?"

"I think I'm gonna stay up for a while. Being at that concert made me wanna go through my old boxes in the attic. There are things in there I haven't looked at in a long time."

"Don't stay up to long." She said kissed my cheek and headed for the bedroom.

The Attic

For the most part my boxes were labeled. I began pulling out piece of clothing from our tours and video shoots. There was a box of memorabilia and tons of photos too. I rolled out a poster I had.

"Wow." I said to myself aloud. We were so young and we had so much fun. I'd do it over a million times if given the opportunity. I sighed and rolled it up. As I reached to put it back, I clumsily bumped an unsteady stack of boxes causing one them to fall. It was filled with Amelia's old clothes.

"We should really donate some of this." I said as I quickly gathered it all and stuffed it back into the box. As I went to put the box back, I noticed a small wooden box tucked away behind the others.

I'd never seen it before.

I grabbed it, turned of the lights and headed back down to the bedroom. As I turned on my lamp, Amelia shifted in the bed next me. I glanced over at her, smiled then brought my attention back to the wooden box in my lap.

There were stacks of camera negatives inside, and a metal piece from god knows what. I held a couple of them towards the light but it was too dim.

I got out of bed, careful not wake Amelia and went into the bathroom where I poured all of the negatives out onto the counter.

"These old eyes aren't what they use to be." I said to myself aloud as I put on my glasses. I picked one up and held it into the light.

They were pictures of me and Janet. Some were from the club the very first night Amelia and I met. I kept thumbing through them. Why did she have these? I thought to myself as I looked back towards the bed. I glanced back at the counter and began to search them all.

I was almost to the end and stopped. There were the negatives of Janet sunbathing. I dropped the pictures and braced myself. I was feeling dizzy and nauseous. My heart was racing. There wasn't a single time I suspected I was being watched.

I couldn't even look at her laying there as I past our bed. I headed into the closet and quickly got dressed. I tucked the box under my arm and headed headed for my car.

The Hotel

As I walked inside, I was stopped at the elevator by one of the hotel workers. I must have looked angry or like something was wrong because he'd been watching me from the time I walked through the door.

"Can I help you?" He asked.

"No, I'm good man, I'm just here to see a friend of mine." I said I pressed the button the elevator.

"I'm sorry," He said stepping in front of me. "May I ask the name of your friend?"

"Her name is Janet." I said. "Can you move please?" I said as he completely blocked the elevator doors.

"I'm sorry, is it just Janet or does she have a last name?"

He was going to make me say it, although he'd never believe me.

"Jackson, her last name is Jackson." We had a silent stare off.

"Can you come with me please?" He said and tried to grab me by the arm. The doors opened behind him and Gil tried stepped of the elevator, running straight into the back of him.

"Shawn?" He said, smiled and started to sing. "I won't knock or ring no bells. You just float bottom up in the air. Said I'll get you hot, I know you oh so well and when I walk in all that I wanna hear is you say Daddy's home!"

I felt like I could breaths again. I started to laugh and hugged him with my free hand. "I told you." I glanced at his name tag. "Vlad." I said started laugh as as still stood there with his arms folded.

"Is my new friend Vlad bothering you?" Gil said, walked up to him and pressed himself against him. I turned my nose up. "Stand down soldier. She's with me." He said. "We wouldn't want your boss to find out what happened on his desk during your break tonight would we?" He looked at Gil and then at me.

"Have a good night Ma'am." He said, smiled at Gil and walked away.

"Yeah thanks Vlad." I called to him down the hallway as we began to laugh hysterically.

We stepped onto the elevator and the door closed I saw the reflection of myself holding the box. Gil glanced at me.

"What's wrong?" He asked. "What's that you're holding?"

"I just need to get this to Janet right now." I said meeting his gaze. He nodded and glanced at his phone. "It's a little after midnight. You'd think after a whole concert and entertaining 20 people during dinner, that she would be sleeping but I'm almost positive that she is still be awake." He said.

I tapped my foot, anxiously. We stopped in front of Janet's door. I raised a hesitant hand to knock but stopped. Gil took my hand and held it.

"I got you." He said and knocked for me.

Janet

I looked away from my phone and towards the sound of knocking. I glanced at the time, grabbed my robe and went to the door.

"Shawn?" I said and glanced at Gil. He shrugged and I stepped aside to let them in. The look on her face had me worried. They took a seat and I glanced back and forth at them for a moment.

"Tell me whats going on?" I asked finally.

Shawn the sat the box down on the table and pushed it towards me. "There's something you need to see." She said.

I opened it carefully and began pulling everything out.

"What are these?" Gil asked.

"They're camera negatives, of us. I found them hidden in the attic tonight. She's been lying to me since the very beginning." She said and pulled two more from her pocket and handed them to me.

I held them up to the light, while Gil looked through the others. "Dunk this is a picture of you a Shawn kissing." He said.

I gasped, reacting to the images of myself naked. I felt tears swelling in my eyes. I closed them and allowed myself to take a deep breath. "I always knew that it was her." I said and looked at Shawn.

Her hands covered her face as she shook her head. She looked hurt and embarrassed. I wanted so badly to comfort her. She glanced up at me, then at the box and pulled out a tiny metal piece.

"I still cant figure out what this is." She said, throwing it on the table. "But it must be relevant if it's in there."

I studied it for a second. It looked really familiar. I'm not sure what made me glance up, but when I did there was a sprinkler head right about me.

"Do you think it goes to that?" I pointed up. Gil ran to grab a chair, stood on it and compared the pieces. He looked down at us nodded.

"There the same girl."

"Fuck!" Shawn yelled, stood up and began to pace back and forth. Gil carefully stepped down off the chair and stood next to me. She was visibly upset as she began to cry.

"I don't even know who I married." She said. "There are pictures of me in there taken before I even met her! How is that?" She said looking at us with tears streaming down her cheeks. "What am I going to do?" She reclaimed her seat and looked to us for the answer.

"Maybe she's a stalker!" I slapped his arm, and shook my head.

"I think what Gil means to say is, there must be an explanation." Even I wanted to laugh at the words coming from my mouth. I was furious and wanted to go to their house and confront her but she was Shawn's wife. I realized, I didn't even know how long they'd been married. Either way, this was harder for her than any of us right now.

She nodded. "Well I'm about to find out." She said, stood up and headed for the door with the box in her hand.

"Shawn," I called out to her. She stopped and turned to look at me. I walked up to her, wrapped my arms around her neck and held her close for a moment. "I'm here if you need me to be. Please just remember that."

Shawn

I sat in the car for a long time, just staring at the front door of the home that Amelia and I'd shared for the last six years. The sun was starting to peek over the horizon and I finally convinced myself to go inside.

Amelia was still asleep and I didn't bother to wake her. Instead, I grabbed a chair, sat it in front the bed and with the tiny wooden box in my lap... I waited.

Nearly half an hour more had passed before she began to toss and turn in the bed. Maybe she was starting to feel my gaze. Her eyes opened, she blinked a few times, sat up and looked at me.

"Shawnette, is everything okay?" She asked as she crawled towards me and sat down on the edge of the bed right in front of me. That's when she finally noticed the box. Her eyes fluttered and she quickly meet my gaze again.

"We need to talk." I said.