One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 172: Chapter 172

For seventeen years, they were a matched set.
Julian and Aiden. The twins.
They finished each other’s sentences, switched places as toddlers for laughs, and shared a language no one else could understand. Even their silences were synchronized.
Everyone assumed they'd go off to college together. Maybe room together. Maybe even study similar things.
Until the decision day came.
And the spell broke.
It started with a breakfast conversation.
Julian waited until the pancakes were on the table, syrup dripping, the house still drowsy.
“I got into Berklee.”
Forks paused mid-air.
“And I’m going.”
Aiden blinked. “You… you didn’t tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure how,” Julian admitted. “But I’ve made up my mind.”
Aiden put down his fork. “I thought we agreed on Columbia.”
Julian’s voice softened. “No, you agreed. I nodded.”
That night, there was shouting.
“You’re just leaving me?” Aiden’s voice cracked.
“I’m not leaving you, Aid. I’m choosing me for once.”
“You’ve never needed to. We were the choice.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be an echo anymore.”
Aiden stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
Arielle found him an hour later, pacing the backyard barefoot, breathing like someone just surfaced from deep underwater.
“He blindsided me,” Aiden said.
“Did he?” Arielle asked gently. “Or did he finally speak up?”
“He’s always been my other half.”
“Maybe now he wants to be his own whole.”
Aiden stared at the moonlit grass.
“It feels like I’m losing something.”
“No,” Arielle said. “You’re watching someone you love grow. And it hurts. But it doesn’t have to break you.”
Damien took Julian for a drive.
No destination. Just roads and windows cracked enough to let in summer air.
“I always thought we’d grow apart naturally,” Julian said. “Not… rip.”
“It’s not a rip,” Damien said. “It’s a stretch. Sometimes love stretches further than we’re used to. That doesn’t mean it breaks.”
Julian’s jaw clenched. “He looked at me like I betrayed him.”
“Because you did,” Damien said simply. “You betrayed what he expected. But not who you are. You honored that.”
The silence between them stretched for days.
They avoided each other in shared spaces.
Conversations were clipped. Family dinners awkward.
And then, one night, Arielle called them both into the den.
There was only one thing in the room: a photo album.
She opened it to the first page.
Two babies. Two cribs. Matching onesies.
“Look at this,” she whispered. “You weren’t made to be mirrors. You were born side by side—but your paths don’t have to braid forever.”
Aiden’s voice cracked. “But I don’t know how to do this without him.”
Julian swallowed. “Maybe you don’t have to do it without me. Just… differently.”
The breakthrough came two days before college move-ins.
They stood at the edge of the driveway, staring at the U-Haul loading Julian’s instruments.
“You’re gonna kill it in Boston,” Aiden said quietly.
“You’ll run Columbia,” Julian replied.
They hugged, long and unfiltered.
And when they pulled away, Aiden said, “We’re not the same anymore.”
Julian nodded. “That’s how we grow.”
And Aiden, for the first time, let his twin go—not because he stopped needing him, but because he finally understood love didn’t always mean closeness.
Sometimes, it meant letting each other breathe.
And sometimes, breathing meant distance.
But never disconnection.