Super Sad True Love Story

Eunice attends the art class with Joshie, and after it, he messages her to say that he is “so totally HOOKED on” her and that it “was like the perfect date” (277). He misses her “sooo much already” and wants to “do this again permanently” (277). At their meeting, he revealed that her family is all well. In the message, he shares that he has “passed on the relocation request to Headquarters” (277), although he is not sure where they should be relocated to. For Joshie, at least, it is “exciting to be ALIVE” (278).

Eunice responds fairly formally to Joshie. She is still self-deprecating about her art skills. She feels “like a very bad girlfriend to Lenny,” she tells Joshie, and she explains that is “really not able to explore anything more than friendship” (278) with him. Mostly, she wants to focus on helping her family. The Rupture helped her to see “that [her] family matters the most […] and it always will” (279).

Joshie is hurt by Eunice’s message and wonders: “If you didn’t want to pursue a relationship, then why did you go home with me?” (279). Joshie says that he simply wants to take care of her “forever and ever” and help her “become a full-fledged artist” (279). Joshie explains that Lenny is depressive and not good for long-term relationships; he suggests that, during a coming Harm Reduction exercise in Lenny’s neighborhood, Lenny should go to see his parents so that he and Eunice “can have a slumber party” (280).

A month later, Lenny returns to his diary to share the news that his parents are alive. When the Norwegian telecommunications company takes over New York äppäräti, his parents’ messages come through immediately. Eunice, too, reconnects with her parents. When Lenny and Eunice stop speaking to their families, they start “laughing at [their] stunned, merry silence” (281).

Joshie facilitates Lenny’s trip out to see his parents in Long Island. The “ethnic” (282) warlords and overlords are fighting on the roads along the way, so Lenny travels in an armored vehicle. It will take “three hours to drive thirty miles” (283). As they travel on I-495, Lenny notices more families driving into the city: “Work is work” (284), and there is none outside of the city.

At his parents’ house, “the gigantic flags of the United States of America and SecurityState Israel still [flutter] obstinately” (284). They are “surprised” that Lenny is before them, “secretly hurt and ashamed that they could do less for [him] than [he] could for them” (285). His parents discuss the news, just as before, espousing their opinions on whether gay people should be allowed to be married. Lenny wants to speak to them about the conflict and armored cars he sees in the town, but he does not know how to change the conversation.

When he sits down to a sparse dinner, Lenny suddenly realizes that his parents are starving. Lenny insists on taking his parents to Waldbaum’s supermarket for more food in his armored jeep. His parents are proud that he is “taking care of them, honoring them, a good son at last” (289). However, fresh produce is “in short supply; most of the good stuff had long been diverted to New York” (289).

When they hear another explosion, his father blames Nigerian warlords nearby. Lenny protests, but his parents dismiss him as “our little liberal” (290). He recognizes, under their happy faces, that his parents are scared. As he falls asleep last night, he reaches out to Eunice for comfort, and he is sad that she does not respond. The next morning, Lenny leaves, wondering who, after all, he is. The answer is simple: “[L]ittle more than my parents’ son” (292).