52 pages • 1 hour read
Ana HuangThe Striker
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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 29-41Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 29 Summary: “Scarlett”
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses sexual content and death.
Asher takes Scarlett on a surprise first official date. Earl drives them to a private mansion, where the famous chef Sebastian Laurent gives them cooking classes. Scarlett feels at ease throughout. Over dinner alone, Scarlett opens up about her relationship with Rafael. Rafael broke up with her almost immediately after the accident and quickly started dating someone new. Asher is furious and admits he always knew Rafael was a bad guy.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Asher”
Asher enjoys the next few weeks with Scarlett, glad for the distraction from football. After a session together one day, Asher compliments Scarlett’s dancing progress. They take a bath together, talking intimately and washing each other. They engage in oral sex and foreplay until the doorbell rings. Scarlett races to the door, and Asher hears her greeting Vincent.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Scarlett”
Scarlett tries fielding Vincent’s questions, worried he’ll discover Asher in the next room. She lies and says someone from RAB is over. Vincent confronts her, revealing that he saw a picture of her and Clive together online. She quashes the discussion and hurries him out the door. Then she and Asher discuss how they’ll tell Vincent about their relationship. He’s home sooner than expected; they’d planned to share the news of their relationship when he returned to London at the end of the summer. Asher changes the subject to his upcoming match with Sport for Hope—“a football fundraiser” (308).
“Asher”
The Sport for Hope organizers ask Asher to help them find someone to stand in for an absent player. Asher calls Scarlett and asks her to convince Vincent to play.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Scarlett”
Scarlett convinces Vincent to play in the Sport for Hope game. She attends with Carina and Brooklyn, careful not to show her feelings for Asher from the sidelines. Not long into the game, Rafael shows up, and Scarlett panics.
“Asher”
Asher and Vincent are furious when they discover that Rafael is a sub for the opposing team. During the game, they get into a scuffle with him, and all three start fighting. The ref pulls them out and scolds them. After the match, Asher and Vincent sign autographs before Asher finds Scarlett talking to Rafael.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Scarlett”
Rafael corners Scarlett after the match. He tries flirting, but she confronts him for breaking her heart and abandoning her when she needed him. Then Asher appears and punches Rafael. Vincent arrives and joins in the fight.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Asher”
After the coach breaks up the fight, Vincent thanks Asher for protecting Scarlett. They agree they both hate Rafael. Then they go to the Angry Boar with Scarlett, Brooklyn, and Carina. Asher feels uncomfortable when Vincent presses him to dance with a woman who’s staring at him. They all go out onto the dance floor. Asher starts dancing with Scarlett when Vincent isn’t looking. Vincent eventually notices their proximity but doesn’t say anything because he’s drunk. Asher wonders when to tell him the truth.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Scarlett”
After Vincent returns to Paris, Scarlett reflects on his and Asher’s dynamic over the weekend. At Asher’s on Monday, Asher informs her he’s going to Japan for an ad shoot and invites her to come. Initially hesitant, Scarlett agrees.
The couple travels to Tokyo and settles into their hotel. They chat intimately, and Scarlett reveals she doesn’t like Asher’s racing. He promises never to do it again.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Asher”
For three days, Asher works tirelessly on the ad shoot. In his free time, he and Scarlett explore Tokyo. On their last night, they agree they want an official relationship and need to tell Vincent soon. Scarlett also opens up more about dance, Westbury, and RAB. Although worried about Vincent, Asher feels close to Scarlett and reminds himself to enjoy the present with her.
Chapter 37 Summary: “Scarlett”
Back in London, Scarlett and Asher train in Asher’s basement dance studio. They stop practicing and have sex in the studio. Scarlett enjoys giving in to the moment, and they hold each other afterward. Scarlett silently worries that her relationship with Asher will change when Vincent returns to London the next day.
Chapter 38 Summary: “Asher”
Asher reports to RAB for practice with Scarlett and Vincent. Scarlett didn’t tell Vincent about Asher’s studio, so the two have agreed to return to RAB. When Scarlett steps out of the room, Vincent thanks Asher for respecting Scarlett and not getting involved with her. He also invites Asher out for drinks afterwards. At the pub, Vincent again thanks Asher for not sleeping with Scarlett. They also discuss their mutual hatred for Rafael.
Asher FaceTimes Scarlett, insisting they can’t tell Vincent about them yet because he and Vincent are finally getting along. They agree they’ll have to find a better time.
Chapter 39 Summary: “Scarlett”
Scarlett struggles to focus during her showcase rehearsal. She pushes herself harder and dances better for a few minutes until she’s overcome by pain. Carina interrupts to tell Scarlett that Lavinia wants to see her. Lavinia informs Scarlett that she fired Yvette for selling Asher’s location to the paparazzi; Scarlett will need to dance in her place.
Nervous and excited, Scarlett calls Asher to see how his first day back at practice is going and to give him her news. Although sad to say goodbye, Scarlett hangs up, lies down, and tries to calm her mind.
Chapter 40 Summary: “Asher”
At practice, Armstrong calls Asher and Vincent into his office. He reminds them to get along this season. Armstrong’s daughter’s unexpected arrival interrupts the meeting. The teammates are shocked to learn that his daughter is Brooklyn.
Asher goes out drinking with the team after practice. They enjoy themselves until Asher’s former Holchester teammates arrive. They bully Asher, daring him to race them. Remembering his promise to Scarlett, Asher declines and promises to beat them in the next match instead.
Chapter 41 Summary: “Scarlett”
Scarlett’s next rehearsals go better, but she can’t ignore her pain. She has Carina and Brooklyn over for drinks one night to distract herself, but she is tired and uncomfortable throughout. Shortly after they leave, Brooklyn knocks on the door to retrieve her forgotten bag. Scarlett struggles to get up, collapses, and passes out.
Chapters 29-41 Analysis
In these chapters, the new couple begins to rely upon each other for support as they navigate The Tension Between Personal Desires and Communal Expectations. For Asher, this means balancing his intensifying feelings for Scarlett with his unresolved rivalry with Vincent and his frustration with Rafael. For Scarlett, this means pushing herself in showcase rehearsals to prove that dancing is still a part of her identity. Asher and Scarlett have been able to share the summer in private together—a sequestered time that has allowed them to develop their relationship on their own terms and without public scrutiny. Once the summer ends, the couple must learn to navigate being apart while continuing to confront their familial and professional challenges. The novel uses these ongoing conflicts in the protagonists’ lives to sustain the narrative tension and to show how loving relationships are peppered with life’s constant challenges. At the same time, when Asher and Scarlett trust one another, their disappointments and frustrations feel less burdensome. In this way, the novel suggests the value of Emotional Intimacy as a Means of Overcoming Trauma.
Though they are becoming more open with one another, both Asher and Scarlett continue to feel the need to hide their vulnerability at times. When Scarlett fails to confide in Asher about her physical pain during rehearsal, she denies herself the support that she needs. The combination of Scarlett’s personal dance aspirations, her colleagues’ expectations, and her lingering concerns about her secret love affair with Asher put stress on her physiologically. While rehearsing, her “worries and disjointed thoughts [jumble] in [her] head,” and cause her to miss “two counts and [stumble] when [she] trie[s] to correct [her]self” (387). This scene shows how the mind, body, and spirit are interconnected. When Scarlett’s mind is bogged down by hardship, fear, and worry, her body feels strained and exhausted. When she confides in Asher, Scarlett relieves her stress and finds comfort in asking for help. When she holds in her anxieties, her body is weighed by stress and her chronic pain worsens. Scarlett’s private desire to prove herself as a dancer therefore causes her to compromise her physical well-being. She’s trying to bear her concern alone, which leads to her collapse at the excerpt’s end. These dynamics convey how the combination of familial, professional, and personal pressures might negatively impact the individual’s health and impede her personal growth if she doesn’t ask her loved ones for support.
Asher’s concurrent conflicts with Vincent and Rafael also show how professional and personal stressors can negatively affect the individual’s psyche. Like Scarlett, Asher has “little prickles and aches that [form] an incessant hum in the background of [his] life”; describing the effects of his trauma, he thinks, “the symptoms were invisible, but they were real” (329). His unresolved guilt over Teddy’s death and anger with Ron over their broken relationship inspire his constant internal unrest and lead him to volatile behaviors like fighting with Rafael during and after the Sport for Hope match. In Chapter 32, Asher uses figurative language to convey his physiological response to seeing Rafael after learning how he mistreated Scarlett:
I pictured her lying in bed and in pain while he ditched her to date someone else. I imagined how heartbroken she must’ve felt. And I snapped. Red crept into my vision. Anger burned reason into ash, and instead of brushing off Rafael’s taunt, I turned and shoved him hard enough to make him stumble (321).
Asher describes his anger by comparing it to “red,” “burn[ing],” and “ash” (321). This diction evokes images of fire, conveying the intensity of Asher’s emotions. Asher lashes out at Rafael because he hasn’t sorted through his emotions in a healthier way. This scene conveys how unresolved tension in the body can manifest negatively and compromise one’s sense of self.
Therefore, Asher and Scarlett’s concurrent personal growth journeys are informed by their familial, professional, and personal challenges. Their past experiences also threaten their ability to focus and evolve in the present. Meanwhile, their continued dishonesty about their relationship—particularly with Vincent—foreshadows further conflicts in their relationship and personal lives.
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