Dragonrider Academy: Episode 1

mom.”
I flinched. Yeah, that had been pretty rough. A couple of days ago the IRS had been on the resort’s case about some tax inquiry that didn’t sound good. They wanted to pin it all on my mom and she was putting up one heck of a fight, but she wouldn’t tell me the details. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea,” I admitted. “Your dad will be mad if he finds out I was at the resort snooping around.” The last thing I wanted to do was to cost Mom her job, and as my stomach sank, I wondered if that was Max’s plan.
Although, out of everyone at school Max had always been decent to me. I wouldn’t say he went out of his way to be nice, but we had an understanding.
“It’ll be on the beach, so it’s not even technically on resort property,” Max said as that charming smile came back again. “That area is public, no matter how hard my father’s tried to buy it from the city, they haven’t given it up yet. Just think about it, okay?” He got up and gave me a wink that made my insides do backflips. “See you at lunch.”
I stared at him as he walked off, waiting until he turned a corner before I let out a breath. Seriously, see you at lunch? I hadn’t eaten lunch with another human being in probably, well… ever.
“See you at lunch,” I mimicked, copying his sultry tones that made my body and mind go to war. I knew that I should never get involved with any of the Resorties, but the butterflies in my stomach hadn’t gotten the memo.
Deciding to put it out of my mind for now, I shoved the invitation into my backpack and gently placed my books into neat piles. I didn’t expect this section of the library to be disturbed and it would be just like I found it when I came back again. The librarian, Miss Jenny, liked to call the fantasy section my own personal “nest” because of how I liked to surround myself with books.
I waved goodbye to the elderly woman on my way out. As usual she had her gray curls pinned back into a messy bun that frayed with her wiry hair. She didn’t hold back on her smile, crinkling her face into further wrinkles as she waved me off and told me to behave for my teachers and not read too much. After all, I’d already read most of the books in the library three times over—the ones of interest, anyway.
The bustle of students surrounded me as I made my way to class, and I often felt like an invisible visitor inside my own body. No one seemed to notice me, some of the bulkier guys slamming into me if I didn’t dodge out of the way in time. The girls only sneered if I got too close, like I had some kind of lethal infection I wasn’t aware of that would be passed on by touch.
Today, though, none of it bothered me.
Max Green had invited me to his party and even if that should have sent up a hundred red flags, I didn’t care. The invitation was solid proof in my backpack and when I sat down at my desk in my second class of the day, I found myself slipping it out just to feel it between my fingers.
This was real. And even as petty or ridiculous as it might be, even if there was some other reason he’d invited me, it was proof that someone in this school knew I existed, and for once, it felt good.
“Miss Reid,” the teacher scolded, making me shoot my gaze up to find the entire class staring at me.
“Y-yes Mrs. Jhones?”
She narrowed her eyes to my hands underneath my desk. “No phones in class, please, or I’ll have to confiscate it.”
I realized that I’d been holding onto the invitation in my bag and it probably looked like I was texting. I nodded and shoved my backpack under my chair as Mrs. Jhones resumed her lesson on a math equation I’d solved in my head over twenty minutes ago.
This was precisely why I didn’t have any friends at this school. Academics came easily to me, and I much preferred reading or working out problems in my head—which looked like daydreaming to other people—than listening to a teacher drone on about things I already knew. My mother had tried to move me ahead in my classes, but it was my father who had expressed concerns about my social development in that regard. Ever since his death, I think both my mom and I tried to warp our lives to match his wishes as much as possible, but I knew this wasn’t the life he would have envisioned for me. He’d seen how hard it was for me to develop friendships even before I could remember. It wasn’t my grade level that was the problem.
It was me.
When the bell rang, I hurried to my next class. Not because it was far away, but because the jungle of Oakland High’s halls was a place I was more likely to get trampled than anything else. It was better to hide in the library or get to my next desk where I could pull out a book and get in a few extra minutes of reading before class started again.
As I dodged one of the giants on the football team who would squash me like an ant, I couldn’t help but wonder what my dad would think about Max’s party invitation.
He would want me to go.
He would say it didn’t matter the reasoning or even if the invitation had a secondary agenda, this was a party with real people my age in an environment that took out the very thing that made me different.
There were no test scores on a beach, or teachers who subtly influenced on a student’s social standing. This would be a place