27 Quotes by Jennifer Close

Sometimes, she knew, people just needed a little time to be able to picture themselves in a new place, to see possibility in a blank space.

You can see it on their faces as they walk down the street. You can spot the new people from the way they smile at the monuments, how they stare at the White House as they pass outside the gates, feeling thrilled and thinking, I’m here, I’ve made it. That’s what I see, mostly, when I walk around now, which is for the best, because it’s not easy to stay annoyed in the face of so much optimism. It’s hard to ignore that much hope.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand it, this jealousy, because I did. It’s just that it was hard sometimes to watch a group of grown people act like seventh graders trying to sit next to the coolest kid at the lunch table. Honestly, it just made you feel sad because you always thought people would outgrow this, thought that adulthood would be different. And it wasn’t.

The fights they had now were much worse. Isabella had never fought like this with anyone before. With Ben, she had all-out, drunken marathon fights that lasted for hours. She was sure the neighbors thought they were crazy.

I didn’t know then that this was just part of DC, that everyone was always looking ahead to the next step, peeking around to see what other people were doing, calculating the next move.

I just think you can’t be so quick to be so sure of other people’s situations. Examine your own situation. You also have a lot of choices. It’s not always easier for other people. It doesn’t work like that.

We all laughed, but what I really felt was a sense of claustrophobia, something that had been happening more and more. It was like the city was getting smaller the longer we were there. It was incestuous, the way everyone knew everything about people.

I wondered if people ever blamed the end of friendships on geographical differences, the divides that come from being born in different areas, culture clash.

It made them restless and irritable while they waited for something to start. They all knew they ought to feel different in their new lives, but they felt the same and it put them on edge. Hot and impatient, they fidgeted in the heat, grumbling and asking each other, “What next? What next?