A New Road West
By Shelley Banks
Rebecca had always been a city girl. The kind who measured time in takeaway coffees and calendar alerts, who found comfort in the hum of traffic and the glow of streetlights filtering through her apartment window at 2 a.m. Sydney suited her—or at least, that’s what she’d always told herself.
But lately, something had shifted. It wasn’t dramatic. No single moment she could point to and say, there. It was quieter than that. A heaviness that lingered even after a good night’s sleep. A restlessness that crept in during meetings. A sense that her life, so carefully constructed, no longer quite fit.
So, on a warm Friday around midday, with the kind of impulsiveness she hadn’t felt in years, Rebecca shut her laptop mid-email, ignored the blinking notifications on her phone, and went home to pack a bag.
She didn’t overthink it. That was the point.
Thirty minutes later, she was behind the wheel of her car, no longer new, but it was all she needed. She headed west, leaving the city skyline shrinking in her rear-view mirror.
At first, she kept glancing back, as if expecting regret to catch up with her, but it didn’t. Instead, there was loud music and warm air rushing through the open windows. The scent changed as the kilometres passed, trading exhaust and asphalt for eucalyptus and dry earth. The road stretched ahead, wide and open, with a kind of promise she couldn’t quite name.
Three hours in, just as the light began to soften, her car gave a shudder.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she muttered, gripping the wheel.
The engine coughed. Then again. And then—silence.
Rebecca sat there for a moment, stunned, the ticking of the cooling engine suddenly too loud in the stillness. Outside, the world felt impossibly vast, fields stretching endlessly, the sky painted in shades of gold and pink.
‘Perfect,’ she sighed, dropping her forehead briefly against the steering wheel.
Her phone had no signal. Of course it didn’t. For a fleeting second, panic flickered. This wasn’t part of the plan. Then again, she hadn’t really had a plan. With a resigned breath, she grabbed her bag, locked the car, and started walking.
The road led her to Willow Creek, a town so small she could have easily missed the sign. A handful of shops, a pub, and a bakery with a faded sign. It was outside the bakery that she met Jack. He was leaning casually against the window, arms crossed, like he had all the time in the world.
‘You look like someone who’s had a day,’ he said.
Rebecca let out a short laugh. ‘That obvious?’
She told him about the car, the breakdown, the lack of phone signal. He listened, nodding, like none of it was surprising.
‘I’m the local mechanic,’ he said. ‘Happy to take a look.’
Relief washed over her. ‘You’d really do that?’
‘Of course,’ he replied, pushing himself off the wall. ‘But first, you need to try a sausage roll. Best in the state. Possibly the country.’
She hesitated, then smiled despite herself. ‘That sounds like a bold claim.’
‘You’ll see’ he said. ‘My sister makes them.’
Inside, the bakery smelled like warmth and butter and behind the counter, stood Jack’s sister who greeted her with a warm smile.
‘Pull up a chair and I’ll bring you a cup of tea as well.’
As she and Jack sat by the window, one conversation turned into another and then another.
Rebecca found herself talking—really talking—in a way she hadn’t in a long time. About work, about the exhaustion she couldn’t quite explain, about the feeling that she was running in place.
‘The city will do that to you,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘Keeps you busy enough you don’t notice you’re not happy.’
Rebecca stared into her cup. ‘I thought I was.’
‘Maybe you were,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t mean you still are.’
Outside, the light began to fade.
‘We better go and look at your car before the light is gone completely,’ Jack said. ‘My car’s parked just down the road.’
As they headed towards his car, people waved, some called out to Jack. Another stopped to ask how Rebecca’s day had been, like they genuinely wanted to know, even though they’d never met her. It was disarming and comforting in a way she hadn’t expected.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in deep purples and soft orange, Rebecca realised something had changed. The tightness in her chest, the one she’d grown so used to she barely noticed it anymore, had loosened.
‘All fixed. You’ll be right to drive tonight,’ Jack said, handing her the keys a little later.
Rebecca took them. ‘Thank you. Really.’
He nodded. ‘You heading back?’
‘Maybe,’ she said slowly. ‘Or maybe… not just yet. And you were right. That was the best sausage roll in the state, possibly the country.’
Jack smiled. ‘Told you. And just so you know, Willow Creek’s not going anywhere.’
As she climbed into her car and started the engine, she didn’t feel the same urgency to leave. The road was still there, waiting. The city too. But for the first time in a long time, she realised she had a choice.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that this unexpected detour wasn’t an inconvenience at all. It might just be the beginning of everything she didn’t know she was looking for.
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