Jesse -- Week Seven

Jesse and his father Roberto are sitting in the session with Paul. After last week's session, Jesse had tried to dodge the train fare on the way up to RISD. He got caught and was held at the local police precinct until Roberto came in from Buffalo to pick him up. They talked all the way back, mostly about Marisa, and now Jesse feels it's time to quit therapy. Roberto says that Jesse had been feeling suicidal after last week's session and Paul had failed to notice it. Paul requests that Roberto leave him and Jesse to speak in private, one final time. At the police precinct and in the car ride home, Jesse reports he felt a strong connection to Roberto, "like I really was his son." Jesse traces his problems o back to Marisa's inadequacy as a mother, but Paul is skeptical. He asks if Jesse really was feeling suicidal the week before; he wasn't. Paul wonders if Jesse is punishing him for not going out with him to celebrate his birthday. When Jesse prepares to leave, Paul warns that Roberto might be turning him against his mother. This sets Jesse off. He's finally on good terms with his father and doesn't understand why Paul wants to ruin that. Paul worries that the issues Jesse had been working through will be pushed deep below the surface if he stops treatment and insists the boy's progress is important to him. Jesse finds this strange and overbearing, shouting at Paul, "You're not my f--king father." At this, Roberto enters to press Jesse to apologize for his language. Jesse gets up to leave, but before he does, Paul retrieves the two letters he had been holding for him. Jesse considers the letters, considers Paul, then storms out of the office. Paul watches through the window as they drive off in Roberto's van.