The Pact

I am reading the book The Pact by Jodi Picoult. Most of her books I have read have to do with serious problems, so when I picked up this book I was expecting the worst. At the very beginning of the book, Picoult started with a murder/suicide scene. It goes on at the hospital and this scene becomes a murder investigation. Chris is charged for the murder of the love of his life, Emily. I think that Chris didn't murder Emily. I think Emily actually committed suicide. She's dead so there's no way of finding out the reason why she did what she did.

One million people kill themselves every year just in the United States. 16,000 people are murdered a year in the United States. There is more of a chance that Emily killed herself than Chris murdering her. There were a lot of signs showing that Em was suicidal. Her art work changed drastically. Some of her drawings had to do with death. She even drew a self portrait of herself as a floating skull in class. She also talked about committing suicide ALL the time. Chris had a hard time with that and he always tried to talk her out of it. But she was determined or her mind was set on doing it.

Also, even though most of the evidence that Chris murdered Emily pointed to him, I still believe Emily wanted to die. I think Chris was telling the truth in the very end. When he first told his story to the detective  and his therapist, he was afraid. Chris was afraid of telling everyone the truth because he loved Emily and he didn't know what else to do. When up at the witness stand, Chris said that Emily told him, she didn't have the guts to pull the trigger on herself. So Chris held the gun to Emily's head as Em helped him pull the trigger. Apparently, that still counts as first degree murder because Chris was holding the gun. And because his finger prints were the only ones on the gun. But I think that Em was the one that pulled the trigger. I know that she was afraid to do it, but I think that because Chris was her boyfriend, the love of her life, she was more comfortable and felt safer with him holding her.

Chris wasn't convicted in the very end. He was dropped of all charges and Em's case was solved as a suicide. I was happy to hear that but I still wonder why Em killed herself. It's scary to even think that people would have these kind of thoughts going through their minds everyday. Chris tried everything to stop Em from killing herself. He tried everything to try and change her mind. But it's just like in the TV shows, when someone wants to kill themselves, something is pushing them to do it. Nothing can change their minds. They become afraid and they feel that they have no escape. I bet that's how Em felt.