You were born on National Maple Syrup Day. Your mother names you Alcyone (pronounced AL-SEE-OWN-EE) because Alcyone means calm. It’s a cruel, unfitting choice given your family’s history of anxiety. You wish your name were something simple and easy-to-say, like Hannah.

By the time you turn nineteen, you've grown tired of constantly having to correct people. It’s Al-see-own-ee, you tell them on the days you have more confidence than usual, but they don’t hear you, and if they do hear you, they forget. As far as they’re concerned, you are Alison. Sometimes Alimony. As time goes on, you accept your fate as this Alison-slash-Alimony person and reason to yourself that your anxiety makes it difficult to correct people anyway. Plus, correcting others is rude, as your mother always told you, even though she had no issue correcting you herself—your wilted-flower posture, your questionable taste in clothing.

It's not until your philosophy professor mispronounces your name on your twentieth birthday in front of 235 other students that you think about what this all means. Perhaps you are not important enough—not worthy of someone taking the time out of their day to string four little syllables together. Instead, they butcher your birth-given vowels like rotten cuts of meat, and you sit there, nodding along as if this is who you are.

If you decide to start going by Hannah, go to A

If you decide to keep going by Alcyone, go to B

________________________

A

It takes some time to get used to the name Hannah. Like a new, stiff shoe, you work hard to break in the vowels—strange and foreign to your ears and tongue—until your new name becomes second nature. Now when people call you Hannah, you turn around. The name flows easily from their tongue, and it’s as easy for them as saying the word apple or tomorrow.

You tell yourself it was for the best—changing your name and all. Your name was too sacred for you to let other people butcher. Every time...