"I did," she nodded and chuckled a little bit. "I wasn't so much a nerd as I wanted to be smart. You know? I didn't want to be one of those dumb Britney Spears types who could sing... kind of? But didn't know that two plus two equals four." She laughed a little. As much as she liked Britney, she always wanted to be smarter than her. So, yeah, maybe that was part of why she was jealous of George. Part of it, anyway.
Shrugging, Caitie nodded. "Yeah, that probably would've helped." Sometimes when her brain got excited about things, logic just felt less important. "Maybe they, like... managed something like what we have?" Probably not, but it was still an interesting thing to wonder. If other places out there had setups like theirs. If people had comfortable little compounds around the world, and lived safely like they did.
Caitie shrugged. "People who hate you are dumb." At least that was how she saw it. People who hated Maddie didn't get Maddie. She wasn't just spiteful and mean or anything like that. Most of the time, there was a reason behind stuff she did. Whatever the reason was. Sometimes Caitie didn't try to figure them out. "When you do stuff, you always have a reason," she added.
The comment took Caitie off-guard, and she looked from the picture to Maddie, blinking in stunned silence a few times. "I..." she started to say something, but instead, trailed off and gave a weak smile. "Thanks," she said, then laughed when Maddie insisted it wasn't terribly poodle-like. "Well, it wasn't super curly that day. You've seen me on wicked rainy days when I get loose-hair friz," she chuckled. "That's basically the whole situation if I don't straighten it."
Girl Luke. Caitie arched an eyebrow and nodded her head. "It wouldn't hurt, right? Since she's so important to your brother or something." She didn't say anything about how she wished Maddie would do the same thing for her, with Nick, but she was thinking it.