I remind myself that today is the worst day—it has to be, right? Everyone has to see me for the first time. And in two weeks, it will be over. Cora can check off my good-faith recovery effort in her binder, and I can retreat to the solace of a bedroom without mirrors or prying eyes to remind me what I am.

The bearded teacher scrawls the word life on a whiteboard.

“Today, we start a new unit.” He underlines the word emphatically. “Together, we will plumb the depths of what it means to be alive. We will study the living world around us and the world within us.”

He tells us we’re having an assessment quiz and gives a boy in the front row a bunch of papers to hand out to the class. When the boy gets close to me, he hesitates, holding the sheets tentatively, like he’s offering a bunny carcass to a rabid dog.

A squeaking, strangulated sound escapes from his throat when I reach out my left hand without thinking. His eyes lock on my fused flipper fingers and my prominent “thumb,” which dwarfs the rest of my hand because it belongs on my foot and not here in the open, freaking out the villagers.

I quickly flop my Frankenhand back to my lap, horrified. The boy half chucks a quiz at me, recoiling quickly.

He speeds back to his desk, and I pick up the paper from the floor, trying to ignore his wide-eyed glances that make me feel distinctly subhuman.

Perhaps I should make a public service announcement? DON’T WORRY, FOLKS! UGLY’S NOT CATCHING TODAY!

That’s when I notice another boy next to me, staring with reckless abandon at the disproportionately huge toe-thumb in my lap. I push my hand into my pocket and train my eyes back on my desk. He screeches his desk closer to mine.

“Is that your toe?” he whispers.

I ignore him.

“Hey!” he says a little louder. “Is it?”

I thrust my shoulder forward so he knows my hearing isn’t the problem. If talking to other people was part of my survival plan, I would tell him to go away.

Instead, I pretend this assessment is one thousand times more interesting than it actually is and seriously consider rescuing my headphones from my bag so this kid will stop trying to strike up a convo. My fingers move upward in a habit I can’t seem to break, searching for my hair to twist around my finger.

“Good talk, good talk,” he says.

I shrink further into my paper. He hesitates for a second before inching back to his row.