55 pages • 1 hour read
Meagan BrandySay You Swear (Boys of Avix, #1)
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section discusses miscarriage, the deaths of friends and parents, and a car accident.
Arianna Johnson and her twin brother, Mason Johnson, prepare for their summer stay at their family’s beach house in Southern California. They have grown up with Brady Lancaster and Cameron, whose parents were college friends with the Johnsons’ parents. Chase Harper joined their group when he moved into the neighborhood, immediately after which Arianna fell in love with him. Cameron knows about her feelings, but Arianna hasn’t acted on them because Mason is overprotective. He’s also been upset since their friend Payton’s boyfriend, Deaton, died in a car crash a few weeks prior.
The friends pile into the car and drive to the beach house. Their parents bought it years ago and are now giving it to their kids so that they can stay close after graduation. In a few months, they’re all starting college at Avix University, where the boys will play football. On the way, Cameron exclaims about the upcoming trip.
Chapter 2 Summary
Arianna and her friends settle in at the beach house. The boys head down to the water while Arianna and Cameron put on their swimsuits. Cameron tells Arianna that they should have as much fun as they can this summer since everything will change once they start college.
On the beach, Brady and Chase comment on the girls’ swimwear. Mason scolds them for being inappropriate. Arianna loves Mason but wishes that he would relax. Then, the girls join Arianna’s cousin Nate’s fiancé, Kalani “Lolli” Embers. They chat about Payton, who’s pregnant with Deaton’s baby, and how she’s been doing since the crash. The boys then run up and start teasing them. Arianna hopes that something will happen with Chase when he smiles at her.
Chapter 3 Summary
Arianna and Cameron dress up to go out dancing. Afterward, the group takes a cab to the club. Arianna doesn’t initially feel like dancing, but the music quickly “take[s] over [her] body” (23). She starts dancing with Chase when their other friends aren’t looking. Chase gets aroused, and Arianna kisses him, but he pushes her away, demanding to know what she’s doing. Arianna feels embarrassed, but the tension goes away when they all get home and fall asleep on the porch.
Chapter 4 Summary
The next day, the friends go out for breakfast, buy liquor using Brady’s fake ID, and stock up on supplies for their bonfire that night. On the beach, Arianna and Chase talk about what happened at the club. Arianna feels awkward but asks why he held her and pushed her away. Chase insists that he loves her but that nothing can happen between them. A football flies across the beach, hits Arianna in the head, and ends the conversation. Arianna looks up to see a beautiful, blue-eyed stranger. She’s so distracted by his looks that she doesn’t immediately realize that he’s talking to her. Then, the other boys join them. Mason introduces the stranger as their new Avix football captain, Noah Riley. One of the other boys is Trey Donavan, a boy Cameron hooked up with while she and Arianna were in Florida vacationing with Cameron’s dad. When the others disperse, Arianna and Noah keep talking. She wishes that he hadn’t interrupted her conversation with Chase but feels herself blushing.
Chapter 5 Summary
Mason takes Arianna aside and demands to know what happened with Trey. Arianna reveals that Cameron likes Mason and tells Trey that she isn’t emotionally available. Studying Mason’s face, Arianna realizes that he cares about Cameron but isn’t interested in her that way. Mason is glad that Cameron likes Trey but promises to hurt him if he hurts Cameron.
The friends gather on the beach for the bonfire. Noah appears and joins Arianna. They chat and tease each other, and Arianna calls Noah “Romeo.” Noah points out that Chase has been staring at Arianna throughout their conversation. Arianna isn’t sure that he’s looking at her, but Noah insists that nothing “forces a man to face his feelings for a woman” more than “the interest of another man” (50). Noah then leaves, calling Arianna “Juliet” when he says goodbye.
When Noah leaves, Chase joins Arianna and makes a rude comment about Noah. He doesn’t know why Noah bothers him and hopes that this feeling will go away.
Chapter 6 Summary
Arianna and Cameron watch television and talk the next morning. Cameron tells Arianna that she knows Mason isn’t into her and isn’t as upset as she thought she’d be. She’s also excited to see Trey again, and Arianna encourages her to enjoy herself.
That evening, Arianna sneaks out of bed for water and runs into Chase in the living room. They start chatting, but when Chase goes to get them some ice cream, Arianna realizes that he wants to be with her. She’s sitting on the counter, and Chase approaches her just as Mason enters and breaks up their encounter. Arianna goes to her room, and Chase appears with her ice cream. Then, he grabs and kisses her. She later lies awake with Cameron, squealing about the incident.
Mason confronts Arianna about her relationship with Chase. He knows that she has feelings for him and warns her about getting involved. He doesn’t want anything to ruin their friend group. Arianna agrees that she doesn’t want anything to happen to their little family but also doubts that she could break up their unit.
Chapter 7 Summary
The friends grab food with Payton. They’re all worried about how she’s doing, as Deaton’s family hasn’t talked to her since the accident.
Afterward, the friends reconvene on the beach for another party. Chase gets upset when he sees another guy trying to talk to Arianna. She notices him showing her attention throughout the evening and silently thanks Noah for making Chase realize his feelings.
Chapter 8 Summary
At Lolli’s for breakfast the next morning, Arianna notices how protective the boys are of Payton. They have welcomed Payton into the group and are just as worried about her as they are about Arianna and Cameron.
That afternoon, the friends watch a movie together. Cameron begs Chase to give her a back massage, after which she invites Arianna to get a massage. Their other friends fall asleep or go to their rooms. Chase starts touching Arianna intimately during the massage but then jerks away, suddenly afraid that Brady will wake up and discover them. Arianna doesn’t mind that he’s pushing boundaries but feels frustrated.
Chapter 9 Summary
The next day, the friends learn that Deaton’s family wouldn’t let Payton come to Deaton’s funeral. They’re all upset by the incident. Arianna feels especially emotional and goes out to the beach to think. The ocean always calms her down. Chase joins her, and they talk about everything that’s going on. They start kissing and then have sex. While they’re sitting together afterward, Mason appears, upset by the scene. Chase gets defensive, insisting that it was nothing. Feeling rejected, Arianna leaves the beach. Chase feels guilty afterward but doesn’t know what to say to Mason.
Chapter 10 Summary
Arianna feels upset after the incident with Chase. She never imagined that he would push her away and wonders if it’s her or Chase that Mason doesn’t trust.
The friends’ parents show up and decide to take the kids home because of everything that’s going on. Beforehand, Arianna and Chase talk. Arianna insists that she doesn’t regret sleeping together, but Chase says that it was a mistake. Devastated, Arianna gets a ride with her parents, hoping that everything will get better once they’re at Avix.
Chapters 1-10 Analysis
The opening chapters of Say You Swear introduce the narrative world and establish the primary narrative conflicts, tensions, and stakes. Primarily written from the protagonist Arianna Johnson’s first-person point of view, the narrative contextualizes these dynamics within Arianna’s experience of them. The way that Arianna processes her experiences in these chapters dictates how the narrative unfolds. The key conflicts that mobilize the narrative are Arianna’s unrequited feelings for Chase, Arianna and her friends’ imminent start of college at Avix University, and Deaton’s recent death. These internal and external experiences impact how Arianna relates to the other characters and how she thinks about her life in the present and future. In turn, Arianna’s longings, desires, hurts, and anxieties introduce the novel’s key themes.
Arianna’s feelings for Chase complicate how she sees herself and relates to others, establishing the theme of The Healing Power of Love. In one sense, Arianna knows that her love for Chase is “the oldest cliché in the books” since she wants someone “who [she] can’t have” (3). However, Arianna has harbored these feelings for one of her and her twin brother’s best friends since he moved into the neighborhood years prior. The friend group’s time away from their parents at their beach house offers Arianna the opportunity to develop a more intimate relationship with her friend and crush. The beach house is symbolic of escape and possibility and offers the characters an exciting retreat from their normal daily lives at home. Indeed, Arianna describes it as “a palace on the water” and regards the place as the proverbial glue that will hold her and her friends together in the years to come (5). Because Arianna believes in the alleged magic of the house, she is hopeful that the place might allow something to happen between her and Chase.
However, this potential relationship simultaneously threatens Arianna and her friends’ close-knit group, introducing the theme of The Importance of Friendship and Family. The dynamics and incidents that play out at the beach house heighten the narrative tension as they endanger Arianna and her friends’ possibilities of sustaining their found family in the years to come. This becomes particularly evident after Arianna and Chase have sex on the beach. The experience marks a turning point in The Journey Toward Self-Discovery for Arianna and challenges her in new emotional ways. At the same time, the incident threatens to undo her friendships and rob her of the one place where she feels safe.
Noah Riley’s character introduces a new layer of conflict. He is indeed a narrative device used to disrupt Arianna’s otherwise predictable social and emotional spheres. In the wake of Chase’s rejection at the dance club, Arianna is afraid that Chase doesn’t want to be with her. At the same time, her feelings for Chase haven’t entirely disappeared. Therefore, she feels confused by her feelings when she and Noah meet on the beach in Chapter 4. The narrative form and linguistic patterns shift in this scene to enact Arianna’s state of mind. For example, the following lines all appear on the page as single-sentence paragraphs: “It looks soft. And those lips. I—Wait. What the hell am I doing? I don’t even know the guy” (33). This fracturing of the narrative body affects a halting narrative tone, which mimics how Arianna feels in Noah’s presence. Arianna is so taken by Noah that she can’t think in her usual manner, and her internal monologue assumes these clipped sentence structures. The narrative thus uses Noah’s character to convey how the individual might develop authentic feelings for more than one person at the same time. Arianna wants to stay loyal to Chase in her heart but can’t deny that she’s taken by Noah. His character complicates how she has been thinking about connection, love, and intimacy and foreshadows the emotional and interpersonal conflicts that she will face in the coming chapters.
