You were the first one to make it apparent that time travel was even theoretically possible. That it's been proven—at least where you're from. [Not where Clarke's from. If there were time travel, she would give up her entire life to ensure that the Earth was survivable. The problem would be giving up all the other lives: making it so that so many others never lived.]

It led to me thinking that—well, my friends are actually a good point to start with. They ... last recall a time in my past. But I know they were there in my future, and never here.

[It's a complicated thing to start with, but she feels like that's enough of a conversation opener. She had been content to assume it was weird time travel, but other people's insistence had led her to think differently. It could be some type of induced amnesia, but she doesn't feel comfortable considering that outcome quite yet.]