The Champion's Phantom Soulmate

Nineteenyearold Silas became the youngest champion on the track. Facing a wall of flashing lenses, the notoriously arrogant boy suddenly flushed.

The tips of his ears burned red. "Someone promised to meet me after graduation," he murmured into the microphones.

He didn't know that when we made that pact, I was lying in the ICU. I was hooked up to countless tubes. Monitors beeped my fading heartbeat.

He definitely didn't know I wasn't some mysterious girl from a thousand miles away. For three years of high school, I sat in the darkest, dustiest corner of the back row.

He had spoken to me exactly three hundred and seven times. Every single time, it was just: "Excuse me." Now, my lungs have stopped working. I'm dead.

And he is tearing the world apart looking for me. Chapter 1 This defective, hollow muscle in my chest finally gave out. It dragged me right to the very end. My parents froze.

Just for a fraction of a second. Then, they went right back to planning my funeral like nothing had happened.

A sneeze from my older brother, Bryce, would have garnered more concern. A congenital heart defect.

It was a jagged rock rotting in our family dynamic, destroying whatever tiny bit of affection they had left for me. Not that they ever wanted me to begin with.

Before me, the house was already full. Tara. Kendall. Bryce. Two older sisters and the golden boy.

When my mother accidentally got pregnant again, they paid for a backalley ultrasound. The technician said it was a boy. That was the only reason I wasn't scraped out.

I came out breathing, but I was the wrong gender. And worse—I was sick. A massive, expensive liability.

When filling out my birth certificate, Harvey scratched out the strong, triumphant boy's name he had meticulously picked. He scribbled down Oona. Just an afterthought.

To them, I wasn't a daughter. I was a surplus. A burden. "We never should have had her." Those words echoed through the house for eighteen years.

They never even bothered to lower their voices when I walked into the room. But it's fine now. I'm finally dead.

The moment the monitor flatlined and the doctor called the time of death, you could practically hear Harvey and Barbara exhale. An eighteenyearold mistake, finally erased.

I slipped away on a bright, sundrenched Tuesday morning. No noise. No fuss. But maybe my obsession tethered me to the living world. My consciousness didn't dissolve.

I became a phantom. I drifted past my parents as they eagerly signed the death certificate. I floated over gridlocked highways and sprawling mountains.

Until I landed in the deafening roar of the racetrack. Here, I witnessed Silas in his absolute prime. At first, I instinctively looked away.

I waited for the crushing pain in my chest. I was terrified the adrenaline would send me into cardiac arrest. A second later, the reality hit me. I was a ghost.

My broken heart didn't have to bear the shock, because it wasn't beating at all.

I snapped my head back toward the asphalt just as a yellow streak of carbon fiber tore across the finish line. I knew that chassis. Silas. He took the championship.

The stadium erupted. The screaming was absolutely deafening. A tidal wave of reporters and cameramen swarmed the track, barricading his car.

Everyone was vibrating, desperate to witness the birth of the youngest world champion. In the center of the chaos, Silas was icecold.

He climbed out of the cockpit, yanking off his helmet with one hand. His other hand ran through his damp hair, pushing it back. The media crushed closer. Silas's jaw ticked.

A muscle jumped in his cheek. He shoved a cluster of microphones out of his face with a hard scowl.

He reached out over the sea of heads toward Otis, his assistant, who was fighting for his life in the mosh pit. "Phone." Silas tossed the heavy helmet at Otis's chest.

Using his height advantage, he completely ignored the flashing strobes and started typing. He stared at the screen. A slow, impossibly soft smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

A damp strand of dark hair fell over his forehead, softening the sharp, striking lines of his face. The sunlight caught the sweat on his skin, bathing him in a golden halo.

It was the gentlest I had ever seen him. A few feet away, Colin practically climbed over a barricade, angling his massive lens, trying to snipe a shot of the phone screen.

Alistair grabbed Colin's collar and yanked him back. "Are you insane?!" Alistair hissed. "You want to drag the whole network down with you?!" "But if we get a shot of whoever the kid is texting, it's the scoop of the decade," Colin argued, eyes wild with greed. "Drop it.

Even if you get the shot, you think you have the balls to cross his family to leak it?" Chapter 2 Amidst the nervous whispers of the crowd, I drifted right behind Silas.

The perks of being a ghost. And there it was. My profile picture. Pinned to the top of his messages under my username, Oona. "I won! Honestly, kind of mid. Barely broke a sweat.

Scaredycat, make sure you watch the replay after your finals. Your boy's drift on turn four was insane. And hey—our deal!

Don't you dare ghost me!" Silas fired off a dozen more texts before finally locking his screen. It was his ritual. I never told him my heart was a ticking time bomb.

I just fed him a lie about having severe anxiety, claiming live races gave me panic attacks. So every single time he crossed the finish line, he texted me first.

He always wanted to break the news himself. Shoving his phone into his fire suit pocket, his mood visibly shifted. He actually let the reporters circle him.

Except… "Wasn't it obvious I'd win? Next question." "Critique my line? He doesn't even belong on the same asphalt." "Shove that mic in my face again.

See what happens." "Are you even a real journalist? What does my GPA have to do with my lap time?" The pit crew practically sweated through their fireretardant suits.

Nobody dared step in. They all knew his temper. They all knew his family's money. Besides, he just lapped the former world champion and shattered the track record at nineteen.

He earned the right to be a menace. The world always forgives a prodigy. Especially a young, beautiful one.

Having watched him claw his way to the top, I knew exactly how formidable his raw talent was. Today was just the prologue. He was destined to be a god on the tarmac.

Lars, a rival team's coach, had muttered it perfectly as Silas took the checkered flag. "The era of this kid… it's finally here." "What's your biggest wish now that you've taken the crown?

Any immediate plans?" a brave reporter asked, clearly expecting another venomous bite. Instead, Silas shortcircuited. The arrogant, untouchable racing god completely froze.

Live on international television, with hundreds of highdefinition cameras zooming in on his face, a deep, furious blush crept up his neck.

His ears burned crimson. "I'm going to Seattle," Silas coughed, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. "Someone promised me.

The second she finishes her final exams, we're meeting up." The press smelled blood. They swarmed closer, a hundred voices screaming over each other, demanding to know who she was.

Silas actually fielded the questions. Patiently. "One thousand and seventynine days. That's how long we've known each other. Yeah, she's a genius. Valedictorian track.

How did you know? She's out in Seattle. I'm in New York. The timezone sucks, but whatever.

I just got my pilot's license anyway." "Girlfriend?" Silas choked, his face going nuclear. "Watch your mouth. We're best friends.

She—she doesn't even turn eighteen for another sixteen days. I said best friends. Is it a crime to visit a friend?

What, do you guys not have friends?" He tried to smooth his features, fighting a losing battle against a massive grin. "Forget it. You wouldn't get it. Eleven days until her finals.

We'll talk after that." He played it off, cool and untouchable. But I couldn't look at him. A sharp, invisible ache ripped through my chest.

I wrenched my gaze away, absolutely terrified of the blinding hope in his eyes. Chapter 3 Silas practically owned the hallways.

Before, his infamy thrived on his billionaire last name, his lethal jawline, and the fact that he flunked his senior year twice. Now? He walked in a world champion.

The administration plastered his face on the front gates. They blasted his victory over the PA system two mornings in a row.

The second word got out that Silas was back on campus, a horde of screaming underclassmen barricaded our classroom door.

Wallace, our notoriously miserable homeroom teacher, chased them off with a scowl that could curdle milk. Nine days until the AP finals.

The senior class was running on pure adrenaline and panic. That suffocating academic pressure didn't even graze Silas. Wallace droned on about literature prompts at the whiteboard.

Silas slouched at his desk, burning a hole through his phone screen. "Wallace has his khakis on backward. I told him. He told me to shut up. Miles bleached his hair.

Tried to sneak in wearing a tragic brown wig today. The wind whipped it right into Principal Phineas's face at the main gate. I'm dead. Haven't been in a classroom forever.

Mindnumbing. Why are finals still so far away?" His screen never went dark. He fired off every stray thought, every mundane detail, straight into the void of our chat.

The teachers didn't even flinch. A world champion with a guaranteed fullride didn't need to care about a piece of paper. He was just riding out the clock.

Miles leaned back, popping his jaw in a massive yawn.

He slid his gaze toward the glowing screen. "Spamming Oona again?" Miles smirked, leaning closer. "She seriously still leaving you on read?" As his deskmate and childhood best friend, Miles knew exactly how deep the obsession ran.

Silas didn't even lift his eyes. "Her finals are coming up. Her parents confiscated her phone. She doesn't get it back until after the last bell." That was the lie.

The exact excuse I fabricated right before I sent my final message. "Isn't she, like, a literal genius?" Miles scoffed. "You just took the world championship, bro.

A twosecond 'congrats' wouldn't derail her valedictorian track." My throat tightened, even though I didn't have one anymore.

I braced myself, terrified Silas would connect the dots.

Silas just shot him a cold, warning glare. "That mentality is exactly why her score in one AP class crushes your entire GPA." Miles flipped him off and sank back into his chair.

At the front, Wallace continued his relentless droning. The grumpy English teacher was a human bulldog. If he caught you slacking, he'd chew you out until the bell rang.

Late May suffocated the room in a quiet, lush heat. Outside, the sky was a violent, rolling blue. Inside, the only sound was the frantic scratching of graphite against test paper.

It was exactly how I left it. Except for the wild oak tree right outside the window.

It had erupted into thick, vibrant green leaves since the last time I dragged my failing body into this building. A morning breeze kicked up, snapping the edge of the window blind.

It brushed lightly against Silas's bare forearm. His hand instantly dropped to his pocket, fingers brushing the hard edge of his phone. A faint, soft smile ghosted across his lips.

The golden sunlight spilling over him suddenly felt too hot. It seared straight through my phantom chest, triggering a dizzying wave of nausea. I wrenched myself away.

I floated desperately toward the back of the room, fleeing back to my own desk. We both occupied the very last row. He commanded the window. I faded into the shadows by the door.

Silas would never know. The "Oona" he was relentlessly texting wasn't a thousand miles away. She was separated from him by exactly five scratched desks and three narrow aisles.

Chapter 4 For years, we tore down every wall between us online. Latenight calls stretched for three, sometimes four hours. But daylight always dragged us back to reality.

He reigned over the hallways as the arrogant, untouchable golden boy. I faded into the lockers, just another invisible straightA student.

My only realworld collision with Silas amounted to exactly three hundred and seven fleeting moments.

Every single time, he dropped the exact same careless murmur. "Excuse me." Sometimes, he and Miles swaggered out the back door to ditch an assembly.

Sometimes, he passed out midlecture, only for Wallace to bark at him to stand in the hall. Other times, he slipped in late, ducking under the window pane.

He leaned in close, his voice a gravelly whisper against the back of my neck. "Excuse me, thanks." I never spoke. I just dragged my plastic chair an inch closer to my desk.

I always wondered what his face looked like when he said those words. But I never once turned around. I skipped every pep rally. He ditched class for the track.

Despite brushing past me hundreds of times, he probably couldn't even pick me out of a police lineup. And that was exactly how I wanted it. I needed to stay a ghost in his reality.

I needed the name Oona to remain nothing but pixels on a screen—an abstract, faceless concept.

That way, when graduation hit and Oona vanished from his universe entirely, it wouldn't wreck him. Sure, it might sting for a minute. But Silas had youth on his side.

He had a brilliant, blindingly fast life ahead of him. Give him a month. He'd forget I ever existed. But at that moment, my desk looked like a landfill. Crumpled AP homework.

Stray trash. Someone actually stepped on it, leaving a smear of dried mud across the wood. Up front, Wallace passed out a fresh stack of test prep.

Chase, the guy sitting directly in front of me, blindly slapped a worksheet backward over his shoulder. A gust of wind caught the paper.

It fluttered right back onto his sneakers. "Tch." Chase rolled his eyes. "Finals are in a week.

Where the hell is she?" He snatched the paper, crushed it into a tight ball, and jammed it into my desk cubby. The sudden shove knocked a filthy whiteboard rag off my desk.

It hit the linoleum with a soft thud. My neatfreak tendencies kicked in. I instinctively reached down to grab the rag. My translucent fingers sliced right through the dirty cloth.

I didn't even stir the dust. The classroom fell dead silent, save for scratching pencils. Wallace paced the aisles, hands clasped behind his back.

He stopped dead right in front of my desk. My chest tightened out of pure habit. For a terrifying second, I thought he stared right at me. He didn't.

Wallace slowly bent down and grabbed the fallen rag. Without a word, the grumpy old teacher began clearing the trash off my desk. He wiped away the dried mud.

He gathered my scattered homework. Then, his shoulders slumped, he dragged the heavy metal desk and chair all the way to the back storage closet.

Wallace held the only secret in this room—he knew I was already dead. He fed the class a vague cover story. He claimed I fell violently ill and needed bed rest at home.

I operated strictly in the shadows. I didn't have a single friend in this room. The whispers died down almost instantly.

But there was one massive, catastrophic blind spot I never anticipated. Miles actually caught a glimpse of me at the hospital. His older sister was Clara—my lead cardiologist.

Chapter 5 "Last time I visited my sister at the clinic, I saw a patient.

Swear I recognized her." Miles jerked his chin toward my abandoned desk. "Serious?" Silas asked, his tone flat. "Heart condition.

Has to be bad if she took medical leave right before AP finals," Miles shrugged. "Sucks. But you know these tryhard valedictorians. A gap year just makes them sweatier.

Next time we hear her name, it'll be 'National Merit Scholar'. Maybe the press will interview me about what it was like sitting near greatness." I drifted sluggishly beside them.

A soft, weightless laugh actually escaped me. "Wait, what was the genius's name again? Totally blanking." Miles tapped his forehead. His eyes suddenly lit up. "Oona!

Yeah, her name is Oona. Bro, she literally has the exact same name as your internet girl!" Silas froze. His hand locked on the cold metal of the door handle.

He slowly turned his head, staring at the empty space at the back of the room