I Bought My Childhood Home at Auction – On My First Night Back, My Mother Called Crying and Said, ‘Please Tell Me You Haven’t Found the Room Your Father Sealed Off’

I told myself not to care.

This wasn’t supposed to be real.

Then one evening, about a month after the wedding, I came home from work and found rose petals scattered across the entryway floor.

At first I thought I’d entered the wrong house.

The trail led into the living room, where I stopped dead.

Roses were everywhere. On the table. Across the mantel. Around the windows. In the center of the room, a huge heart had been made from petals across the floor.

And standing in the middle of it all was Stan.

Only it barely looked like the Stan I knew.

He was wearing a perfectly tailored black tuxedo that probably cost more than my car payment, and in his hand was a velvet ring box.

For a second, I genuinely thought I was hallucinating.