When Rachel Harding, a college senior, experiences a police-involved shooting at the school where she is student teaching, she is thrown into a complex world of politics and self-preservation, all the while trying to complete her internship hours and move into her next stage of life, wherever that might take her.

With mounting pressure to speak out about the event to the press and members of the community, Rachel has to decide not only where her own views lie but also how she can deal with its effects on her and her young students. Rachel struggles to overcome her soft-spoken demeanor and loneliness amid tragedy, simultaneously hoping to receive a strong recommendation from her supervisor, Mrs. Means, who from the beginning warned, "I think the students are going to eat you alive."

Complete with romance, complicated relationships, and big decisions about the future, Gray Area will offer insight into the makings of the modern teacher.