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I folded up another box of CDs with a sigh. Everyone had said we had a few months in Forks still, but I didn’t see the point in putting off the packing. Might as well tear the bandaid off. I heard Alice flit behind me, standing straight for a fraction of a second as she waited for me to turn around.
“Esme wanted to know what name you wanted on the new paperwork. We were thinking Evans for the surname, but Edward and Rosalie are still up in arms about it.” She rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know.” I answered. It didn't matter much to me, as long as Edward and I shared one. “What are the choices? Besides Evans, I mean.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t get involved in that bloodbath,” Alice joked. “I meant for your first name.”
“Um,” I said. “Bella?”
“Oh,” Alice smiled a sort of fond, pitying smile. “Bella that’s...we really should change it, especially since there are still humans around who knew you as Bella.”
“Why...I mean...do you change it?”
“My name?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course. We all do.”
“Your first names?” I muttered, wandering downstairs before she could answer.
Alice followed, joining the rest of us in the kitchen. “Bella, what did you think…?”
“You change your first names?” I asked Carlisle.
“Of course” he answered. I was starting to feel quite stupid, that my questions kept being answered as if they were obvious. Edward had joined me downstairs, though, an ever-present distraction from my feelings of inferiority. Why should I feel inferior, when the most beautiful creature in the world loved me?
“Why?” I asked.
Carlisle smiled as Alice had before. “Well, a family of seven with all the same names popping up half a dozen times of the course of a century might lead to some ghost stories, as you can imagine. It’s precaution, like everything else.”
“Your name isn’t Carlisle?” I asked dumbly. I felt like my family had lived a double life. I supposed that they had, but somehow a different name is what made that fact real to me, a separate title for each chapter.
“Well, my name is Carlisle.”
“But what were you before?”
“His name was Lindsey!” Emmet called from the living room.
“A perfectly common name for the time, I assured you,” said Carlisle, his handsome voice reflecting good humor.
“I’m sorry Bella, I thought you knew,” Esme apologized. “You can keep your name of course, for this go around, if you’re not comfortable changing it yet. Edward needed time too.”
My eyes shot to the man beside me. “Your name isn’t Edward?”
Rosalie snorted. She was met by a reproachful look from Carlisle before Edward answered in a perfect quotation of his father.
“Well, my name is Edward.”
“But what’s your real name?” I demanded. I was feeling oddly betrayed that this piece of information, this treasured facet of Edward, had been kept from me.
“Bella, love, the name I carried when I met you, the name we share, is the most real identity I’ve ever possessed.”
Though the blood had left me long ago, I could almost feel my face flush. “Okay that’s- that’s cheating Edward, just answer the question.”
“Bella,” Edward pleaded, “Any name from your lips I would answer to. Anything you call me, that is real, that means more to me than anything I was before-”
“Hubert,” Rosalie snapped, and Emmet’s laugh grew louder as he joined us in the kitchen, though I could tell from the way he restrained himself that this was not new information to him. Just to me then. Emmet was just here for the show. “He was Hubert when he was turned. He went by that for nearly two decades after we knew him, he was dreadfully attached to the thing.” she sneered.
I turned to Edward, eyebrows raised. “ Hubert? ”
“Bella,” Edward murmured, running a thumb over my upper arm. Damnit, he knew how to distract me. “Let’s not focus on the past.” For as much as my own thoughts could be an enigma to him, I could practically see the calculations running behind his eyes. My lips curled into a smile. Oh, I was not going to forget this. “What would you like for your last name? Rosalie and I both wanted Evans, but you see how that would complicate things- what would you prefer?”
I pretended to think. “Mrs. Hubert Evans...I think it flows well.” I felt a swell of satisfaction as Emmet guffawed, and Alice flitted behind him just in time to shield her quiet, full-body laughter. Jasper smiled.
Edward’s face crumpled, ever-perfect, even in agony. “Bella…”
“I’m kidding,” I whispered, and leaned up to kiss him. “Any name you like, I’ll be happy to call you. As long as we share.” I turned back to Esme bashfully. “I’d like to keep Bella for a bit longer, if that’s alright.”
“Of course, Bella,” Esme smiled, and wrote something down on the stationary before her. It was just like Esme, with the flawless memory of our kind, to make a lovingly scripted list of her children’s new names.
Edward took the moment to recover. “You know…” he whispered to me, “Emmet’s name was Charlie.”
“Hey!” Emmet barked, and I laughed.