Jesse -- Week One

Reading the New York Review of Books, Paul spots an advertisement for a novel by his former therapist and mentor, Gina. He answers a knock at the door and is met with a camera flash in his face. It's Jesse, Paul's patient, a troubled gay teenager, and he has pictures he'd like to show Paul. As they scroll through them, Paul realizes that the pictures were taken the night before at Jesse's friends' bar and that he skipped school that day. Throughout the session, Jesse is anxious and distracted. He lashes out about his adoptive mother, whom he refers to by her first name, Marisa. Jesse's father has hired a new employee and Paul asks Jesse if this implicit rejection has spurred his recent bad behavior. Jesse jokes about his birth parents, picturing his real mother as a crack whore. When Paul asks Jesse to put away his iPhone, Jesse plays a voicemail for him. It's a call from a woman who claims to be his birth mother, Karen, requesting that he call her back. Jesse is clearly still shaken by the news. Her number has a Westchester area code, which Jesse assumes means she is rich. Paul suggests they talk more about the call before the boy responds. Jesse leaves Paul's office with no particular destination in mind.