Room To Grow (Frerard) (Completed)

15-Finally, Am I Right?

"Gee?" Frank said, a sly smile on his face with the paper held behind his back.

The woman looked up, a grin stretching her lips and exposing her white teeth. "I saw it," she stated, her smile broadening by the second.

Frank felt a warm rush through his body, originating around his torso and extending all the way to his toes and fingertips, a heat that led him to believe that if he were to look down, beams of happy light would be streaming from each of his fingers.

He walked closer to Gee and held out the newspaper as a sort of offering to a real life goddess. "It's all true," he said offhandedly while he grappled with his mind, searching every nook of his brain for the right words to say to tell Gee about the warmth, the love, that seemed to be encompassing his entire body.

Gee seemed to glow with the same joyful radiance, leading Frank to wonder if this was what it truly felt like to be happy and in love and at peace with the world. This was the feeling that weed was supposed to give you, an elevated feeling that the universe was finally at rest and everything was perfect. But weed couldn't ever do this; weed was a synthetic attempt to reach an incomparable high. Frank knew that he would never smoke anything again - Gee Way was his new high.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" Gee asked dazedly, her eyes misted over as she turned over what Frank assumed were similar thoughts to his own: thoughts about perfection and love and happiness.

Gee reached out a dreamy hand to grasp the newspaper and smoothed it out on a table. She absentmindedly traced her finger over a picture of her standing in front of the class, an eager smile on her face while Frank sat on a stool behind her, as spellbound by her teaching as the students were.

"Everything's going to be alright now, I think."

Frank, in that perfect moment of happiness, had to agree.

-----

But all happiness had to be put aside, because only a few days later, the day everyone had been dreading arrived.

It was the monthly PTA meeting, in which Deborah Wentz would challenge Susan Stump for leadership of the PTA. It was the day in which they would find out whether Gee would stay safely at the school or be forced to leave.

The radiance seemed to have been reabsorbed into Gee, only to seep out on rare occasions when she could set the worry and anxiety aside. The warm glow in her complexion had almost completely faded into a drained pallor coupled with dark circles under her eyes that made her stress and lack of sleep painfully evident.

Frank felt the same stress simply from watching Gee crumble into anxiousness. Even her students had noticed that something was clearly wrong. Brendon had raised his hand in class and asked, "Is Mrs. Way sick?"

Then, Gee had explained that no, she wasn't sick, no, she wasn't dying, she was just under a lot of stress, and does anyone know what stress is?

Frank found himself dressing nicely once more for the PTA meeting, which he would be sitting in along with Jamia and Lindsey. Gee would only be present for the very end, to protect her from unnecessary strain.

Frank sent one last encouraging text to Gee before entering the school, which was a virtual dead zone for cell service. He would have to step out through the back door of the gym if he wanted to update Gee, which he planned to do regularly.

Susan sat proudly in front of the gym, in the center chair of five. She regarded the general public, filing into the rows of plastic folding chairs in the rest of the gym, with pitying contempt.