CRUMBS

Crumbs follows sixteen-year-old Amelia "Amy" Cole, a quiet and emotionally withdrawn girl growing up in the declining economy of twentieth-century California. As the eldest daughter, she carries the crushing weight of family expectations while battling asthma, symptoms of ADHD, episodes of depersonalization, and a deepening depression brought on by years of bullying and isolation. Unable to express herself to anyone around her, Amy secretly falls in love with her Social Sciences teacher, Rowan Everett, whose kindness becomes a source of comfort she mistakes for hope. Knowing her feelings can never be returned, she buries them within the pages of her journals.

Everything changes when Amy discovers an old walkie-talkie hidden in her school's library, connected to only one mysterious frequency. Every night at exactly two in the morning, during another sleepless bout of insomnia, she speaks into it, using the anonymous voice on the other end as an outlet for every fear, regret, and secret she has kept bottled inside. As the late-night conversations continue, the walkie-talkie becomes her only refuge, blurring the line between reality and illusion while exposing the emotional fragments of a girl desperately searching for someone who will simply listen.

Told entirely through Amelia's diary entries, journal pages, and unsent letters addressed to Rowan Everett, Crumbs pieces together the final months of her life from her own perspective. Each page reveals another "crumb" of her struggles, hopes, and quiet suffering, leading to the day she entrusts her journals to the man she once loved before making a tragic decision that forever changes the lives of those she leaves behind. A haunting psychological coming-of-age novel, Crumbs explores loneliness, invisible struggles, and the heartbreaking consequences of unheard cries for help.

Copyright © 2026 Angelou Elise
All rights reserved.

Written and Illustrated by Angelou Elise
Date Started: June 25, 2026
Date Completed: ...