It is that he slowly builds a self solid enough that his sense of his own worth no longer hangs on anyone else’s reliability.

Luca had taught Leo, cruelly, that a hero can betray you.

And Leo had learned, over three years, the answer to that wound, which was not to find a better hero but to become his own — to build, rivet by rivet and landing by landing, a self that did not require a hero at all.

The boy who drew BEST PILOT EVER had loved a father.

The boy who drew RUNWAY 18 LEFT had become a pilot.