My sacrifice only worked because she was already gone.
That's the only reason I'm here, soaked in dirt that smells like blood.
Because my angel, it turns out, wasn't Savannah Ashby.
It was Eleanor.
Savannah moves to an antique safe built into the wall. Early 1900s steel, fireproof, surrounded by cinderblocks like it's holdin' nuclear codes instead of photographs.
She knows the combination by heart. Spins the dial, memory guidin' her fingers through the sequence.
The safe door swings open with a heavy metallic groan.
And there it is.
Red leather. Hand-bound. Thirteen by thirteen inches. Five hundred and twelve pages of my life rendered into art by a woman who saw me when nobody else did.
Savannah lifts it out with both hands. Reverent. Careful. Like she's carryin' something sacred that might shatter if she breathes wrong.
She turns and extends it toward me.
I take it.
The weight surprises me—heavier than I remember, thick with paper, and memories, and Eleanor's relentless documentation of a boy who wasn't supposed to matter.
I carry the book to a velvet couch against the far wall and sink down into cushions. Savannah settles beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch.
I open the Book of Legion.
First page: me at maybe two years old. Dust-streaked skin, messy blond hair catchin' sunlight. I'm holdin' a Matchbox car, blue eyes wide and bright, smilin' at somethin' off-camera.
Turn the page and find more of the same. There are no skips in time in this book. Every day, it feels like she was there, takin' my picture.
I grow up before our eyes.
Me at four or five, standin' at the edge of a school playground. Alone. Watchin' other kids play. The composition's perfect—Eleanor caught the isolation, the loneliness, the way even then I stood outside lookin' in.
Me at seven, climbin' a fence. Scraped knees. Torn shirt. But the light—God, the way she captured the light turnin' my hair almost white, makin' me look like somethin' celestial instead of just another throwaway kid nobody wanted.
I'm smilin' now. Can't help it.
Page after page, Eleanor documented moments I forgot existed. Me runnin' through fields. Ridin' that dirt bike I bought at fifteen. Standin' by my motorcycle at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—always alone, always watchin', always waitin' for somethin' I couldn't name.
Then the pictures shift.
Me and Savannah together.
Fourteen and twelve, sittin' at the silo entrance. Just talkin'. Eleanor must've been hidin' in the trees with a telephoto lens, because we never saw her, never knew we were bein' captured.
Fifteen and thirteen. My arm around Savannah's shoulders. Both of us laughin' at somethin'.
Sixteen and fourteen. The kiss. Our first real kiss, the one Eleanor showed me years later when she came to the garage. But here it's different—not just one shot but an entire sequence. Before. During. After. The way we looked at each other. The way the world disappeared.
Tears start fallin'.
Not sobbin'. Not breakin'. Just water spillin' from my eyes like my body needs to release somethin' it's been holdin' in for twenty-five years.
I turn to Savannah.
