The Heir (The Selection #4)(74)

“It’s been harder than I thought, with so many disasters along the way. And I’m not as good at showing my emotions as other girls, so it comes across like I don’t care, even when I do. I like to keep things to myself. It looks bad, I know, but it’s real.”

He’d been around me long enough to know it was true. “You need to address this. You need to say something publicly about that story,” he insisted, his eyes focused on mine.

I rubbed my temple. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. What if I somehow make it worse?”

He poked my stomach, something we hadn’t done since we were children. “How can the truth make anything worse?”

Well, that confirmed all my anxieties. Admitting how much this meant to me now might also mean owning up to the origins of this particular Selection. With the way things were going, that wouldn’t win me any sympathy.

He turned me around and pointed me toward my table and chairs. “Here. Let’s sit for a minute.”

I sat beside him, piling up some of the dress ideas I had been working on.

“Those are impressive, Eadlyn,” he remarked.

I gave him a weak smile. “Thank you, but it’s really just a bunch of scribbles.”

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t make it seem like it’s not important.”

I remembered those words, and they soothed me.

Kile pulled over a handful of the pencils and started some sketches of his own.

“What are you drawing?” I asked, looking at the little boxes.

“An idea I’ve been experimenting with. I’ve been reading about some of the poorer provinces. One of their bigger issues is housing right now.”

“Because of the manufacturing boom?”

“Yeah.” He continued to sketch, making practically perfect straight lines.

Dad did what he could to encourage more industrial growth in some of the primarily agricultural provinces. It was good for everyone if things could be processed where they were grown. But as that took off, more and more people moved to be closer to those areas, meaning not everyone had adequate housing.

“I know a little bit about how much it costs to get supplies, and I figured out that it’d be possible to build these smaller huts, basically like family cubicles, fairly inexpensively. I’ve been playing with the idea over the last few weeks. If there was someone I could get the design to, they might be able to implement it.”

I looked at the little structure, barely as big as my bathroom, abutted against an identical box. They each had a door and a side-facing window. A little tube at the top caught rainwater, and a small bucket collected it by the door. Vents lined the top, and a small tarp jutted out in front, shading the front of the space.

“They look so tiny though.”

“But they’d feel like a mansion if you were homeless.”

I exhaled, thinking that was probably true. “There can’t be space for a bathroom in there.”

“No, but most people use facilities inside the plants. That’s what I read anyway. This would be strictly for shelter, which means workers would be more rested, have better health . . . and there’s just something special about having a place to call your own.”

I watched Kile, his eyes focused on the extra little details he was adding to his work. I knew that hit home for him, that he was aching for anything that truly belonged to him. He pushed the paper away gently, adding it to the others.

“Not nearly as exciting as a ball gown, but that’s all I know how to draw,” he concluded with a laugh.

“And you do it so well.”

“Eh. I just wanted to distract you for a minute, but I don’t know what else to do.”

I reached over and held his hand. “That you came at all is enough. I shouldn’t let myself sulk too much anyway. I need to come up with a plan of action.”

“Like talking about it?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I have to speak with my dad first.”

I could tell he thought I was being silly, but he didn’t know what was going on. Not really. And even as someone in the know, it was hard to understand.

“Thanks for coming, Kile. I owe you one.”

“You owe me two. I’m still waiting for that chat with my mom.” He winked, not too upset I hadn’t delivered yet.

My promise was still in the back of my head, and I’d had more than one opportunity to bring it up with Miss Marlee. But now I was the problem, not her. It was getting harder to imagine the palace without Kile around.

“Of course. I haven’t forgotten.”

He poked my stomach again, and I giggled. “I know.”

“Let me go talk to my parents. I need to figure out what to do.”

“Okay.” He put an arm around me and walked me out the door, parting with me at the stairs. From there I went straight to the office, nervous about how tired Dad looked when I came in and cleared my throat.

He popped his head up from the papers, shoving the stack of them into a drawer as if I wouldn’t see. “Hey, sweetie. I thought you were going to be working on the Selection side of things this week.”

“Well, that was the plan, but I’m wondering if that will even be of any help right now.”

He was crestfallen. “I don’t know how this happened, Eadlyn. I’m sorry.”