How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
My body becomes a raft and there's this part of me that wants just literally to go with the flow […] But I know sooner or later I will have to get out, that I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes […] the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so that when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life. (15.4)
This is a pretty poetic description, but we think what Taylor's getting at here is that she needs the pain in her life in order to feel real. Loss, abandonment, and confusion have marked her identity for most of her life. She wants to surround herself with those things, as painful as it might be, so that she can fully taste freedom once she escapes them.
Quote #5
Santangelo turns back around but I catch his eye in the rear-view mirror and he looks away. Once again I get the sense that he knows something more than I do about my own life. I can't imagine what it is but I suspect as the son of a policeman, he comes across all sorts of information. (16.70)
It must be a creepy feeling for Taylor to know that there are people around here who know more about her life than she does. Santangelo, of course, is the prime example—as the son of the officer who investigated both the accident and Webb's disappearance, he has to know Taylor is someone with tons of baggage.
Quote #6
These people have history and I crave history. I crave someone knowing me so well that they can tell what I'm thinking. (16.173)
Taylor "craves history" because she has none of her own. As her relationship with the faction leaders loses its competitive edge, she begins to glimpse her need for connections with others in order to make her own identity more solid.