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BEN ASKS WHAT HE can do to make me feel better, somehow find a way to end a shitty day on a positive note.

“Cure world hunger and cancer?” I say. “Not in that order, of course.”

“Absent that.”

“Then take me for ice cream,” I say.

“Where?”

“Carvel,” I say.

We both know the closest Carvel is in Bridgehampton. Ben says we could stop on the way and grab dinner at Bobby Van’s, then go to Carvel for dessert. I inform him that Carvel is going to be dinner.

“So ice cream is the cure for what’s ailing you, at least tonight?”

“For crying,” I say. “Ever since I was a little girl.”

Ben orders a black-and-white shake when we get there. I order two scoops of soft-serve chocolate ice cream with hot fudge. He knows how much I like to wait out the fudge until it settles on the bottom.

He turns to me at the counter. “You want sprinkles?”

I shake my head. “You don’t mess with perfection,” I say. “No sprinkles, no nuts, no whipped cream. Chocolate on chocolate. Bring it on.”

We go back to the car and he actually seems happier watching me savor my sundae than he is drinking his own milkshake. I tell him I feel as if I have time-traveled my way back to high school and had him along for the ride.

“I wish I’d known you then,” Ben says.

“Be careful what you wish for. I was a handful, and not just of sprinkles.”

“Ohhhhh,” Ben says. “ That’s when you were a handful. Good to know.”

He leans over and kisses me. “Ah,” he says. “Cold lips, warm heart.”

And just like that, I feel as if I want to start crying again. Even after we’ve gone for ice cream.

I don’t. Instead I swallow hard, choking back the tears, and say, “I’m tired of being tough.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Even when I was a kid, I had to learn how to be tough once my mom got sick. Then my sister got sick. And now I’m sick.” I take a deep breath. “I’m even more tired of being sick than I am of being tough.”

Ben says, “You don’t have to be tough when you’re with me.”

“Sometimes I forget that.”

“Don’t,” he says. “Or I’m not marrying you.”

“You’re not marrying me.”

“We’ll see about that,” he says. “You may have noticed, I’m still playing the long game.”

“Then you should start looking around for somebody who actually is capable of playing a long game herself,” I say.

He lets that one go, and then we’re heading east on 27. But when we get to the Founders Monument at the traffic light at the end of Main Street, he makes a sudden right on Ocean Road.

I ask where we’re going.

I see him smiling.

“When was the last time you made out in a parked car at the beach?” he asks.

Now I smile.

“High school,” I say.