When i pull into the parking lot of Queen Elizabeth Elementary School, Lauren gives me a funny look.

“This is where Benny and I met,” I explain as I park the truck. I notice the front doors are still a bright yet inviting blue, like they’ve always been. I turn the engine off. “He moved here in the third grade. At lunchtime, he sat down next to me. I watched as he ate his hamburger and Tater Tots in about fifteen seconds flat.” I laugh. “Man, that guy still loves Tater Tots. Anyway, when he was done, he turned and looked at me. And I’ll never forget what happened next.”

“What?” Lauren asks. I love how truly interested she is in this story.

“Benny said, ‘This is my favorite part of school.’ And then I said, ‘You mean eating lunch?’ And he said, ‘Nah. After we eat. Going to recess. Playing with friends.’ And I said, without thinking, because I was a stupid eight-year-old boy, ‘But you’re new. You don’t have any friends.’ He looked at me with those big brown eyes and said, ‘Maybe not yet. But I will. You’ll see. Now hurry up and eat so we can go play.’”

I swallow hard. I remember the moment so clearly, it’s like it happened an hour ago. “And he was right. By the end of recess, we were friends. But you know what’s really amazing to me? He could have sat anywhere that day. But it’s like God knew, and he sat him next to me.”

“Knew what?” she asks.

“Knew we needed each other.”

It hangs in the air for a second, and I want to say, I still need him. Benny. My best friend. And that I miss him like crazy.

But I don’t need to say it. She knows. How can she not know?

I quickly open my door. “Come on. We’re gonna go have a pie picnic. On the playground.”

She smiles. “A pie picnic! Awesome.”

I grab the sheet and the pie while Lauren carries the grocery bag. We walk around to the back of the school and stand there, scanning the place for a good place to sit.

“Over here,” she says. I follow her like she asked, all the way to the top of the play structure.

I point to a steering wheel that juts out from one side. “Who’s gonna fly the spaceship? Or whatever this is we’re on.”

“Don’t worry,” Lauren says as she takes the sheet tucked under my arm and spreads it out. “The driver’s there; you just can’t see him. We’re in good hands.”

“Oh. Right. An invisible driver. I forgot that’s a possibility on playground spaceships. What’s his name?”

She opens the bag and takes out the paper plates and plastic silverware I bought at the store. “Uh, how about Rain Man? After all, he’s an excellent driver.”

“Rain Man?”

“Yeah. You’ve never seen that movie?”

I take a seat on the sheet and set the pie down in the middle. “No. I haven’t. What’s it about?”

Lauren sits across from me. “Two brothers who didn’t know each other existed until their father died. One of them is autistic with lots of quirks. The other is kind of a selfish jerk. They go on a road trip together, and the asshole brother becomes less so, and really comes to love his quirky brother.” She picks up a knife and starts slicing the pie. “In the end, these two people, who were pretty lonely before they met, end up with something they didn’t even know they were missing.” She looks at me. “It’s sweet, right? It won a bunch of Oscars. It’s one of my mom’s favorites.”

I nod. “I’ll have to check it out. You know, you haven’t said much about your mom. If you want to talk about her, about what happened or whatever, I hope you know you can.”

She puts a piece of pie on a plate and passes it to me.

“Thanks, but there isn’t a whole lot to say.”

I fish a fork out of the box of utensils. “Do you miss her?”

Another piece of pie goes on a plate. “Not really,” she says too quickly. Her eyes float up to meet mine. “Well . . . maybe once in a while.”

I’m not sure what to say to that. If she isn’t ready to tell me more, I don’t want to push her. I simply say, “Yeah. I get that. It sneaks up on you sometimes. The missing, I mean.”

She’s pushing her pie around on her plate with her fork, and I want so much to lean over and take her face in my hands so I can kiss her. Make her feel better. Because whatever happened, I can tell she’s hurting. Maybe she doesn’t want to admit it, maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it, and yeah, maybe she wants to forget it ever happened, whatever “it” is. But I see it in her eyes — she’s having a hard time.

“You know, Benny said something to me recently,” I tell her. “He said we gotta take the bad stuff with the good. That it’s just how life is. If you think about it, no one has it good all the time. You don’t, I don’t, Benny certainly doesn’t. So maybe we have to just hold on and believe that eventually good stuff will come out of the bad stuff. Somehow. Some way.”

She tilts her head just a little. Her eyes narrow. It’s like she’s studying me. “Do you think something good will come out of Benny getting hurt?”

I think of all the people, an entire town, coming together to help one guy.

I think of Lauren and me, sitting here, talking and eating pie together.

I think of Benny. Everything he’s been through. His unknown future.

“If I want to get out of bed every morning, I have to believe something good will come of it.”

I pick up my plate and take a bite of the pie Lauren and I made together last night.

“And who knows,” I add. “Maybe something already has.”

“I wish it’d been me,” I tell her.

Her head shoots up, like a rocket, eyes glaring at me. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true, though. Football might have been Benny’s ticket to college. I know I’m supposed to think positive. I’m supposed to believe that he can come out of this better and stronger than before. And I’m trying, Lauren. I’m really trying. But if it’d been me, I wouldn’t miss football that much.” I swallow. “But with Benny, it’s, like, all he thinks about.”

She sets her pie down and gets to her feet. She goes to the railing and stands there, looking out toward the soccer field. “You just said you have to believe something good will come out of it. Maybe something will. For Benny, I mean. We don’t know. Maybe he’ll meet the girl of his dreams down in Atlanta. Maybe someday he’ll get married and have beautiful babies. Maybe he’ll become a politician. A good one, you know? One who works to make the world a better place.” She turns her head toward me. “You don’t know what comes next. No one knows, really, but anything’s possible. Isn’t it?”