Candidate

Part 1

I guess it was going just a little too well

If I wasn't careful I'd be happy pretty soon

Heaven's no place for one who thrives on hell,

One who prefers the bit to the silver spoon.

Then just when I'd almost resigned myself to winning

When it seemed my bright future would never dim

When my luck looked as though it was only beginning

I met him.

The Princess Diarist - Carrie Fisher

The doors of the train car opened to reveal a sea of people, some clad in suits, others in casual wear, and a few repping merchandise from their universities. Carrie had never been on campus, spare never have even been within the city. Instead of asking for advice on how to arrive at her dormitory, Carrie filled her Metrocard with a single ride's fare and swiped herself and her luggage in, hoping that this station was on the correct side of town.

Quickly, she strolled into the train car, praying that this was the right line, going directly uptown. She saw people in sweatshirts presenting her college, easing her nerves, but others in the same sweaters, except those, were ironed with NYU.

Carrie glared around, looking for a place to sit. The few strangers beside empty seats did not look too welcoming. She grabbed hold of a metal pole, feeling her body jut into it as the train took off, speeding past the unfamiliar subway stations.

It had been difficult for Carrie to feel out of place. She was respectfully outspoken, thought of herself as smart, and based on the compliments from her high school boyfriend, was decently nice-looking. Carrie didn't come from a wealthy family, she didn't attend a private Catholic school or take piano lessons, but she had never taken into account how underprivileged she was from the rest of her peers.

When she opened her acceptance letter from Columbia University, she was sat on a wicker porch swing, drinking green tea to calm her nerves and watching the neighbors' children play ball in the street. Her grades were near the top of her class, she volunteered on the weekends, and she had her French teacher write a two-page long letter of recommendation, but she didn't expect to read that she had been accepted into the Ivy League. Her mother had dropped out of college in her first semester and her father hadn't finished high school, there was no one in her immediate family that would have ever been expected to go to a school out-of-state, nevertheless one of the top schools in the country.

Looking around on the train, Carrie noticed that most of the people wearing Columbia's sweatshirts were fumbling around on their cells, others chatting away. She looked down to her own clothes, a worn t-shirt and jeans, nothing notable. The people who would soon represent her student body wore jeans as well, it was a cold day, but theirs were much more expensive judging by her naked eye, and she couldn't dream of wiping out her phone there, still having a flip phone whilst everyone else's was up to date.

With her father completely out of the picture, Carrie had spent her adolescent life living with her mother and younger brother, the three of them often living with her grandparents when money was low. They currently resided in Illinois, two hours from Chicago, although Carrie rarely had the funds to travel into it. Their home was small, constructed with brick and painted yellow, the paint scraping off to expose the burnt umber coloring of the brick. She lived in a moderately nice neighborhood, no crime, scandals, or brothels, but no homes exceeded three bedrooms, there were no pools, no lush lawns to mow. Her bedroom was the only second-story room in their home, planted right above the attached garage. The ceiling slanting down caused Carrie the need to stoop down when she walked around most of her room. The room lacked true decoration, but her walls were painted white and decorated with handwritten quotes, photographs of her friends, polaroids of scenery, and a calendar from two years past. She had a small desk that doubled as a vanity, her laptop she saved up minimum wage for sitting in the center and a light-up mirror on the right side, her makeup strewn into one of the drawers. The carpet in her room was shaggy, matted down in various places, and her bed was a twin, situated beside a pinboard where she tacked up all of her academic achievements. Her room had the bare minimums, a bed and a desk, and what was pinned and taped onto her wall were either given to her, hand-drawn, or printed at the local Rite-Aid.