100 Unfortunate Days by Penelope Crowe Page A

time—my shrink thinks it is because everyone died on me when I was young. What that has to do with finishing anything is beyond me…but if you have an answer please send me a message.
    I LOVE to peel things—especially skin with my fingers and fingernails. I could peel sunburned skin all day long. I love it.
    I love getting mail…I don’t think I’ve gotten a letter since I was in fifth grade and my new girlfriend from around the block and I wrote letters to each other. I knew what she wrote but I loved getting it.
    I love alcohol.
    I love waking up in the morning and driving around when the sun is just coming up and hardly anyone else is on the road.
    I love bright lights and big windows.
    I collect church relics and rosary beads and crosses.

Day 88
    My dream life…I want someone to pick out beautiful clothes for me, to clean my house and cook my meals, I want to be beautiful and I want men to want me. I want to eat anything I like and never gain an ounce. I want to go to my beautiful home near the ocean and have all the friends I made from all my book tours visit me and tell me I am wonderful. I want lots of money that I earned myself and a red Mercedes convertible with a camel leather interior. I want diamonds. I want… I want… I want… I want…

Day 89
    Well, you call every day and you’re right on time
    And I can’t help but think that it’s all by design
    Suddenly things become yours, become mine—and I wonder what happened to us.
    The excuses I had they are all running thin
    I’ve so much to say and I cannot begin
    And the angels that wait on the head of a pin are beginning to run short on faith.
    Can’t say that I blame you, I bring out your worst
    I knew for so long, should have mentioned it first
    I’m gasping for air and you’re dying of thirst and we both need to figure this out.
    All the time that you spend in the air on a plane
    Keeps us separate and quiet and I shouldn’t complain
    But you wanted it neat and confined and contained but there’s no room for me in that box.
    But I miss how you look when I knew you were mine
    You’d smile with your eyes and I’d lose track of time
    You’d ask how I was and I really was fine.

Day 90
    A boy I went to school with had cat eyes. He was smaller than everyone and the pupils of his eyes were vertical slits. He was the nicest boy in the school but I could not look at him for very long. He had brown hair and light skin and was normal in every other way. He had many friends and it seemed they did not notice his eyes. Maybe they could not even see those eyes. Maybe I was the only one who could see them.
    At lunch in school I could feel the boy staring at me. Although I did not look at him, I knew he was looking. He would stare and stare at me and his stare burned and I knew he was smiling bigger and wider and his teeth looked too big for his mouth. His eyes grew wider and he looked like a shark. I would quickly look up, sure I would catch him in the middle of this horrible stare, but he was never looking at me. I would think of him when I was at home at night in the dark and I was convinced that he was staring at me, but even in my imagination he knew when I was going to look, and stopped before I could glance back.



Day 91
    We went to my aunt’s house after she died and realized the house was going to be torn down. It was dark and dismal and there was a room on the second floor that was filled with dolls. Dolls with cracked marble eyes and dolls whose eyes never shut. They were scary dolls in a scary room and I knew when she shut the lights off at night that the dolls got up and walked around the house. The room next door to the doll room was filled with miniature furniture. A tiny kitchen and a tiny dining room and living room. A perfect itty bitty tea set. This is where the dolls live at midnight.

Day 92
    I believe I am somewhat of a spider and trap whoever I can in my web. Once I have them, I never want to let them go. However, I do let them