She was sure that her friend had changed somehow, changed in some irreversible way, allowed Rob to mould her into some other person that Tara didn’t even like. So that was the final break and she had made it. She could leave everything behind. She felt good about it. She felt she had made the right decision about Vancouver. She was confident, full of hope and excitement, right up until the time she checked her bags on Air Canada at the Halifax airport and then told her father not to wait around. She wanted to be on her own. “Why don’t we go to the cafeteria and I’ll buy you a snack.” “No thanks. I’m not hungry. I’ll be okay from here.” Tara could tell she had hurt her father’s feelings by asking him to leave. But she was afraid that, if he hung around, if they sat around talking like father and daughter, she would feel guilty about leaving him. And she didn’t want that.
