As it turned out, catching up was a lot less informative than Charlie had hoped.

Linus had remained mostly quiet throughout the dinner, only speaking when spoken to, mostly by Sally. Charlie had managed to get in one question early in the evening—with which he was able to find out that Linus had been feeling very down lately for some reason—but after that, it was all noise. Charlie's dad told a few of his many well-worn jokes, at which Mr. Van Pelt laughed hard enough to draw a dirty look from the proprietor every now and then. Mrs. Brown for some reason was obsessed with asking how Rerun was doing in Belgium, and Lucy couldn't help but roll her eyes as her mother heaped seemingly endless praise on the boy for adapting so well to the culture. As the parents ran out of things to discuss midway through the main course of the meal, Charlie excused himself to get some fresh air.

Once outside, he sat on the curb and took a deep breath, his head in his hands. This wasn't going how he'd hoped. All he'd wanted was to talk with Linus and possibly help him feel better, but it looked like that wasn't going to happen. He'd completely missed his chance. An old, familiar sense of failure washed over him. Why had he even bothered agreeing to come on this trip? He should have known that it would be pointless. Just like everything he did.

"Hey."

Charlie snapped back to reality just in time to hear Linus' voice. Turning back to see the boy standing over his shoulder, he said, "Oh…Hey."

Linus sat on the curb next to him. "I couldn't hear myself think in there. I got kind of tired of listening to them talking about Rerun so much, so I came out here. Is everything all right?"

Charlie sighed. "I'm fine. I just…" He looked out at the parking lot. "I really wanted to find out what you meant when you mentioned you weren't feeling so well recently. Did something happen, or…?"

Linus shrugged. There was an odd look of resignation in his eyes. "No, not really…I've just been feeling kind of sick, honestly. Not sick in the sense that I feel physically ill, but in the sense that something really isn't right."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" He looked around, before saying, in a hushed voice, "I…honestly don't know if God really exists anymore."

Charlie was shocked. He would have expected something like this from anyone else, but…Linus? The single wisest, most spiritual person he'd ever known? "I don't know what you're getting at," he stammered, trying to hide his disbelief.

"You don't have to pretend you saw something like this coming, Charlie Brown. I know I was always one of the most Biblically astute people in our little circle as a kid. I feel like I shouldn't be thinking stuff like this, but…I am."

The shock had subsided a bit, and Charlie was calmer now. "But…why? Did something happen?"

"Not really. It wasn't so much a sudden epiphany as a logical conclusion. Having studied the facts and put it into context with the modern state of events, one day I discovered that maybe there's no way to explain all this away with the Bible. Maybe evangelical Christianity is…wrong."

"But whatever happened to standing by your beliefs?"

"There's a difference between standing by one's beliefs and refusing to take the outside world into account," Linus replied. "You can stay true to the overarching tenets of your beliefs, while making small adjustments to keep them compatible with everything else."

Charlie remained quiet. He could certainly relate to how Linus was feeling. He'd had questions like this for some time now, just like his friend; and yet, Linus' scenario seemed more critical.

The boy continued: "When I first started thinking about these things, I was kind of scared. I worried that if I told anyone about them, or if I asked someone for help, they'd think I was a heretic or something. You're not supposed to have questions. You're just supposed to go on knowing all these things, like they're second nature. Like it's taken for granted that they're true." He paused, looking away, before adding: "But in the end, it doesn't really matter, does it? People will judge you no matter what you believe."

"Have you tried telling Lucy? Or your parents?"

Linus shook his head. "My parents would react worst of all. All this time I've been afraid of what they would say if their eldest son was straying from the flock. In a way, I managed to convince myself that I was just imagining all of these worries. I started reciting all these obscure Bible verses to myself and to others, as if I was trying to prove that since I studied it this much, and I knew it this well, it just had to be real…but it didn't work. I had just as many questions as I started with, if not more."

"What about Lucy?"

"Oh, she knows," Linus said. "I made her promise not to tell anyone, but…I don't know what she thinks of me because of it. She hasn't changed toward me, but maybe she secretly thinks less of me now…she can't respect me now, assuming she ever could." He stood up. "I don't know what to do now. I have to tell my parents at some point, but what do I say? How do I keep them from hating me? What should I do to tell them that I don't know what to believe?"

Charlie stood up as well. "Calm down," he said. "You're overreacting a bit…I don't think Lucy thinks any less of you. And neither will your parents."

Linus sniffed. Tears were forming in his eyes. "But what if they do? What if they think that I'm a terrible person for not thinking the way they think, or if they condemn me for not being steady in my faith?"

"They won't." Charlie put his hand on Linus' shoulder. "Linus, you're the most forward-thinking person I know. You've never let anything stop you from believing what you feel like believing. Remember the time you tried to make the library stock that children's book that got banned? Or when you were trying to convince all of us that the Great Pumpkin made the rounds giving out presents every Halloween?"

"That's different," Linus replied, trying to hold back his tears. "I was a little kid back then."

"But that's the point. Even though you were just some blanket-toting little kid by most standards, we all looked up to you. You wouldn't let anything get in the way of believing whatever needed believing in. I'm sure even your parents looked at you and thought, 'Our son is going to be a steadfast, loyal young man one of these days.' You aren't betraying them just because you have questions. It just proves that you're thinking for yourself, which is what you've always done. You aren't a bad person. You just believe things that maybe others haven't come around to believing yet."

Linus stood quietly for a few minutes. Then he looked at Charlie, and hugged him once again. "Thank you," he whispered. "You're an amazing friend, Charlie Brown. I'm glad I know you."

Charlie smiled, returning the hug. "I'm glad I know you too."

They remained in the embrace for several silent moments. Breaking away at last, Linus spoke once more, with a newfound determination that sounded like the kid he used to be.

"You're right…maybe I'm worrying too much. They aren't going to stop loving me just because I have questions about things. And even if it turns out that God isn't real after all…at least I'll still have friends like you."

Charlie said nothing, but exhaled happily. As they stood there, outside the dingy Italian restaurant, he knew that Linus was going to be all right.

And at the end of the day, that's all he really wanted.