Some maneuvered into her peripheral vision and got so obvious about it that she had to peek over at them just so that she didn’t seem weird. There was on-purpose paper rattling and throat clearing to draw an involuntary glance from her, which some people would then make into an invitation to chat. Much of it was friendly. They wanted to say they’d seen the video, that they were glad she was all right. Sometimes they wanted to tell her about something that had happened to them, or to say they thought it was cool what she’d done. But sometimes they asked her to tell them the step-by-step details, to narrate their memory of what they’d seen on their screens. They wanted her fear and her pain and her almost-maybe-dying without thinking about how she might feel about the thing she’d actually lived through.

But whatever looks or words they wanted to trade with her, what Carly understood was that none of this was the real want, the real need. They wanted her to look at them, yes, and they wanted her to know what they were thinking about when their eyes met. But the demand of attention, even from across the room, was a type of touch. As much as if they’d put their hands on her, it was a reach and a catch that she saw with her eyes, but felt in her throat.

Her bad thing was any bad thing—accident, illness, attack, ruin in all its million forms—that everyone, not so deep down when they looked at Carly, knew was possibly close by. Maybe even standing invisible at their own shoulder in that very moment. Any bad thing could be on its way to them. Their lives could be on the to-do list for disruption, or even disaster. And so they forced Carly into contact, and it was a weird little bravery for them. They wanted to touch it before it touched them.

Strangely, she didn’t mind. She felt like a freak, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It made her feel real. Somehow, and with a pang, she knew this feeling, this certainty, wouldn’t last. It would end. She would forget. She was already forgetting.

The Carly of two weeks ago felt far away. The reality of Other Carly was fading. Normal life was blocking the view. Right at first, she’d been like the Venus flytrap on the windowsill in the science lab. Sticky and spiny, grabbing things that landed on her attention and then digesting the idea of them, breaking them down to know what they were made of. But now sometimes she was just what she was. She forgot to pay attention. Dumb as a regular plant.

She was still changed. She thought she was. What if she wasn’t? What if she didn’t get to keep it?