Page 93 of If I Stopped Haunting You

“Hmm,” he whispered, eyes still closed. “Enough.”

“You’re a little shit, you know that?”

“Quite possibly.” He shifted slightly, groaning. “It’s nice of you to say, though. I didn’t think anyone looked up to me.” He smiled crookedly. “Can you imagine? Me,a hero.”

“Of course people look up to you!” She pulled her hand free, holding it in her lap as if he’d burned her. “You’re Neil Storm. Like you said, you’re a household name. People know your books. They’re the first thing you see when you walk into Barnes and Noble. They’re on the ads in Target, celebrated in every single place that sells books. You have turned yourself into a legend.”

He peeled open his eyes, angling his head to look at her. “And so have you.”

She snorted. “Yeah, for throwing a book at your head.”

Grunting, he used his arm to prop himself up, curls falling haphazardly over his eyes. “No.” He shook his head and groaned, running a hand through his hair. “For telling the truth. So often, we look at other BIPOC artists and praise them for doing good. And yes, rep is important, but when we let go of what is most important to us and start writing for people other than ourselves, when we start compromising our art, what’s the point? And youdidn’t, Penelope. Never once did you compromise what you stand for, and look at you.”

“You’re the only one who thinks any of this.” She pressed a hand to her chest, fingers curling into her sweater. “You’re the only one who cares about my writing.”

He glanced up at her from beneath his curls. “I know we’re told not to look ourselves up on the internet. I know we’re told to keep away, but you need to see this.”

Neil searched his pockets for his phone. There was a long crack across the screen, but he waved his hand dismissively as he tapped, scrolled down, tapped again, and then handed it over. Pen took it with a frown, scanning the screen. Her heart thudded. The thread readPenelope Skinner, Hero of the Book World.

He motioned for her to flick through them, and she swiped to the left, breath catching. There were dozens of screenshots, as if he’d collected them for her over the last four months. Pictures and videos and GIFs. People posted photos of themselves with her book, with her, and at her events. And not even one of them hated her. No one said that she was in the wrong. Some joked that maybe she shouldn’t have thrown a book, but they didn’t blame her for it in the least.

“All these people.” Her heart was in her throat, her vision blurring with tears as she met those emerald eyes. “I thought they hated me.”

“You’d be surprised how many people are rooting for you to make a comeback.”

Pen couldn’t help it; hope surged in her. She wasn’t alone. She’d assumed the world had made her into a villain, but she never stopped to think that a group of people might have sided with her.

Handing his phone back, Pen glanced to the hall, to what she could see of the painting of Georgina from where she was sitting. Courageous, that’s what Neil kept calling her. Penelope Skinnerwas courageous. She didn’t back down from a fight. And though it terrified her, she suddenly knew what she was meant to do. What she was always meant to do. She stood, her fingers tapping against her thigh as she smiled and shook her head. She pictured the young woman by the window upstairs, the hint of pain in those silver eyes. The girl she’d been, in love and desperate.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Pen said as she bent down and kissed his cheek.

Neil grazed her hand with his. “Where are you going?” he called, swinging his legs over the couch with a grimace.

Pen paused in the hall and glanced back at him. She remembered the way Georgina had leaned close. The ghost had steered Neil out of the room long enough to tellher. This was always the way it was meant to be. This was how she got it all back.

This was how she got her story, how she’d climb her way out of the hole she’d dug for herself and prove everyone in publishing wrong. This was how she’d make it out on top for the first time in her life.

Thiswas how Pen redeemed herself.

Pen smiled as something settled inside her. She shivered pleasantly, her hand tightening on the doorframe. Sighing, she knocked against the wood and turned to go.

“I’m going to be the hero.”

Chapter 28

NEIL

“Hero?”

Neil struggled to stand as Penelope disappeared around the corner. He took a shaky step forward and teetered, his hand reaching out for the wall to steady him.

“Penelope,” he started, blinking dots from his vision as a headache throbbed behind his eyes. “Penelope, please! What the hell does that even mean? Where are you going?”

She was moving faster than he was, too fast for him to stop her. Penelope’s steps were sure, her hands fisted at her sides as she strode down the corridor and past the kitchen, toward the side door.

“Penelope, wait!”

“I have to do this!” she called, not turning back. “Georgina pushed you out of the room, not me. She wanted to tell me about the mausoleum. Me, not you. For the first time in my life, I was chosen over you, and if that’s how this story ends, then so be it.”