It astonished me there were places in the world where you could drive 600 kilometres without encountering a town or an attraction. Just miles of red dirt, yellow grasses and scrub brush, and occasional trees for six straight hours. Although I should have been used to it, having driven to Karijini from Uluru. This time we were bound for the coastal town of Broome.

Sadie stared out the window in some sort of daze. Was she thinking about my confession yesterday? Debating when to pull a runner and find more normal company?

You make me feel safe, her breezy voice echoed in my mind.

Ally had never seen it that way. At first, she found my asking to hold and kiss her cute, but soon she grew tired of it. "Neil, I'm your girlfriend, not your mother. You don't have to ask me for every ruddy thing. After six months of dating, that should be obvious. It kills the mood." When I asked my mates about it, they agreed with her.

So I tried to fix my problem by being more spontaneous with her, acting like the guys in the romantic comedies she'd watch. Sweep her off her feet, kiss her unexpectedly, whisper compliments in her ear as we lay together. She had explicitly asked me to, and it made her happier than ever. Things were good for a while.

"What are you thinking about?" Sadie asked, her words making the cold air from the vents stronger.

"Do you really want to know?"

"If you want to tell me."

I wasn't the suavest guy, but even I knew confessing to dwelling on another woman while with a wonderful one wasn't bright. "This endless drive."

"You sure? That looked like an unwarranted amount of contempt unless you're worried about my company." She crossed her arms over her baggy t-shirt.

"You're clever. If I stick to my story, It'll seem like I'm insulting you, which I won't do."

"And you're deflecting."

I grinned at her in the way Ally always told me was irresistible. "You're really good."

Sadie chuckled. "Last question and I'll shut up. Was it your ex?"

My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, and I focused on the road. She saw right through that greasy attempt to charm her. What was wrong with me? It had been a desperate knee-jerk response to protect myself.

Sadie drummed her fingers on the dash. "Since we started working on our bucket lists, I've thought about mine more. Memories of us making it together and how devastated I was when he bailed on the trip. But also how boss I was sliding down that waterfall and all the cool stuff I accomplished solo. I got this scar on my elbow mountain biking down a legit mountain in New Zealand." Sadie held up her arm.

I could picture that satisfied yet terrified smile she wore after abseiling. "You are truly remarkable."

"Thanks, I keep trying to move forward. But sometimes you have to look back to learn from your past pitfalls."

"I can't imagine you doing anything wrong."

Sadie ran her hand through her long hair. "I wasn't always honest about what I needed and who I was—with him and myself—which led to our unhappiness with the relationship. In retrospect, our trip was a last-ditch effort to regain the rush of falling for each other before we both started holding grudges."

The night the bucket list seed was planted came to mind. Ally had stumbled home from the pub where she and her girlfriends usually met up on Friday nights. She raved about a vacation Jasmine and her fiancé had taken.

"They got engaged on the beach at sunset!"

"Engaged?" Anytime I mentioned marriage, Ally brushed it off as some far-off notion, but if she was bringing it up, it had to be a sign. "She must be thrilled. They've been together just over a year now, right?" We'd dated for nearly two and been friends for ages before that.

"Only you would hear that story and ask about the timeline, Neil." Ally laughed.

"I'm curious is all. Where did they go?"

She rhymed off a handful of countries in Southeast Asia with a wistful sigh.

I grinned at her. "I've always wanted to visit Australia."

"If I went, I'd learn to surf, snorkel the great barrier reef, hold a koala bear." Ally beamed. Could this be it? A perfect trip to solidify our future. I reached out an arm and captured her fingers. As she entwined them, I pulled her closer and she hopped on my lap.

"I'd look for dingoes, rock-footed wallabies, and the Tasmanian Tiger."

She giggled and kissed me on the lips, leaving a taste of rum. "Okay, Steve Erwin, as long as you find me a koala."

It astounded me we could transition from that to screaming at each other until I felt like dirt. 

"Neil," Sadie called out, her hand now on the steering wheel next to mine. I muttered apologies and kept us in our lane. "It's a fairly straight road, but there is still occasionally traffic," she teased. A semi-truck approached in the distance. As the giant passed us and rocked the vehicle with a blast of air, she grinned and yelled," Road train!"

"What?"

"That's what they call them here. I'm sure you saw plenty in Northern territory. I've never seen one that had five trailers before."

The hum of tires on asphalt and the engine running made me scramble to fill the silence. "Sorry, about earlier. I didn't think I'd be putting you in more danger when I offered you a ride to relieve you of that dodgy sedan for a few days."

"That car's a beast. She can take a beating on those unsealed roads."

I would be an anxious mess driving anything without four-wheel drive through the outback, but if you stuck to the major roads, most were paved and in good condition. "Tough like her owner."

"Not always. Sometimes I'm bawling. At others, I'm questioning every choice I've made. If you're constantly putting up a tough front, you're lying to yourself, which isn't great for your mental health."

I'd tried opening up with my mates—minus the bawling—but their eyes would glaze over and they'd give me sympathy nods or they'd tell me Ally was a bloody catch and I was an idiot for screwing it up.

Unlike those pricks, Sadie seemed to want to hear about it and she talked about her past openly. Was I daft and rude to shut her out? Her gentle smile confirmed my theory.

"I was thinking about my ex. Before and when I nearly crashed us." My heart was still racing from my recklessness.

"It's not a bad thing to do, but if it's that intense, stick to when you're not operating a vehicle," Sadie teased.

I let out a breath of relief. At least she wasn't mad. "Aren't I supposed to live in the present of this amazing trip, to move on and focus on the new people I've met?"

"During the first weeks, even months after a break-up, looking back is grieving what you lost. Seeing the good times with rose-tinted glass, denying the bad, and experiencing the sharp edges when it shatters and you face the brutal moments your heart broke."

I envied her steady tone and ability to be analytical about something so raw. "Sounds accurate."

Sadie played with a wooden bracelet on her wrist. "But, looking back once you've accepted the loss helps. The good memories or what you miss tells you what you want and need from another person. The bad ones tell you when you might have made an uncomfortable compromise that crossed your boundaries or show signs of a person ill-suited to you to ignore in the future."

"So in thinking of my ex, I'm moving on."

"I'm not in your head to know if you've moved past grieving, but if you're doing more than asking yourself how you could get her back and hoping that she'll reach out and all your disagreements will wash away, then it's probably helpful."

Was I there? I wanted to be. Sadie made that stage seem desirable. "I was considering how different her response to my boundaries was compared to yours."

"How so?"

I squeezed the steering wheel then relaxed my grip. "In the beginning, she didn't address it, but after dating for a while, it upset her. She compared me to a child."

"So you need a partner who respects your needs and doesn't infantilize them."

Like you. But that wasn't a fair assumption since we were just friends. If we were in a relationship, Sadie's reaction could be much different. Plenty of my mates' quirks bothered me, but they were tolerable in small doses.

"What were you thinking about when we nearly left the road?" Her tone showed she was more interested in the answer than judging it. "Only if you want to talk about it."

"About how this trip idea was born. My ex's friend had come back from Vietnam engaged to a bloke she'd been with for a year. Ally was thrilled about it, and I thought if I took her travelling like that..."

"You could get the same happy ending." She pressed her lips together as her forehead creases deepened. "That's heartbreaking, Neil. I'm so sorry."

I breathed heavily through my nose as my eyes stung. Tears made my vision blurry, and I begged my eyes to reabsorb them. I didn't want to look as broken as I felt nor crash the jeep.

"Neil," came Sadie's soft voice.

Please don't let her have noticed.

"Can I hold your hand?"

A tear slipped from my effort. "Only if you're okay with me having one hand on the wheel."

She placed her small hand over mine. Somehow, that tiny gesture was as wonderful as holding her at the gorge. It was better than Ally drunkenly telling me she was excited about an engagement. I wanted to tell Sadie, but my voice would break and I'd dissolve into tears. Instead, I moved my hand off the wheel so I could entwine our fingers. I brought our hands close to my face, and after meeting her eyes to ensure it was okay, I kissed her soft skin. Her returned smile meant everything.

We're off to Broome! A nice tropical change from the outback. Thanks for reading. The mood board is a bit more moody than realistic to their drive. They would have been on a paved highway (but in searching through my photos I could only find those of the unsealed outback roads - they're just more photogenic). 

Also, the video is "The Open Road" by Hollow Coves which captured the Australian road trip vibes really well. It's not the same region Sadie and Neil are visiting, but it has great outback feels too.