Neel Dervin and the Dark Angel (35 page)

His mother massaged her temple slowly with one hand. “I‟m
sorry you had to see him
this way, Divya.” she said. “I wish to god I knew what was wrong with him.” her voice shook
slightly. “But he won‟t say anything.”

“We‟ll find out soon.” Divya said comfortingly
, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Just
wait till we get to DoctorFahim‟s office and then I‟m sure you will get some answers.”
Neel‟s mother nodded.

Fifteen minutes later, Neel and his mother were driving with Divya in her little car.
They were at the college where Divya had studied, and where DoctorFahim‟s office was. A
few minutes later they parked outside the west block of the campus.

“He says he‟ll meet with your mother first.” Divya said as she came out of his room.
“The two of us will wait here.”

Neel‟s mother rose and made her way to the office
, and Divya took a seat next to Neel.
“What happened to you?” she said softly, reaching out for his hand. “We were all so
worried.”

“Nothing.” Neel said quietly.

 

“You have to stay positive if you want to beat your condition.” Divya pressed on. “You
have to have the right frame of mind.”

 

“I‟m never getting rid of this PTSD thing.” Neel said, still in a listless voice.

 

“Don‟t think like that!” Divya‟s grip tightened on his hand. “You can beat this illness,
Neel. But give yourself time. It won‟t happen overnight.”

“I‟ve had plenty of time.” Neel said. “It‟s not getting better. It‟s worse now. I can‟t eat. I
can‟t sleep. I‟m afraid to go outside.” His voice was rising uncontrollably. “And every damn
night it‟s the same dream. The car‟s coming towards me, and I‟m dying all over again.”

Divya wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Neel continued to stare
ahead without responding. She searched desperately for something soothing to say, but
nothing came. They sat in silence for several moments.

Fifteen minutes later, the door of the office opened.Neel‟s mother emerged, looking
much more relieved. “How did it go?” Divya asked.

 

“Quiet well.” Mrs. Dervin said in a hushed voice. “He‟s a very nice man, Neel. And he
explained a lot of things very clearly to me. He wants to see you now.”

 

“Go, Neel.” Divya said to himquietly. “Please.”

 

Neel rose slowly and made his way into the office. Doctor Fahim was sitting there
behind a desk similar to the one at Swan Labs

“Good morning, Neel
anchan.” he said. His familiar quiet, piercing gaze made Neel feel
uncomfortable. He felt a strong desire to leave the room, but fought it down.“Your mother
has been talking to me about your behavior for the last few days. What happened?”

“Nothing.” he muttered.

“You stopped coming to Swan Labs.”
Doctor Fahim said in a neutral tone. “You stopped
attending school. You stopped using your cycle. You no longer meet your friends. That does
not seem like nothing.” Neel remained quiet.

Doctor
Fahim gazed at him in silence for a moment. “I told your mother that, from the
symptoms she explained, I was sure you are dealing with a mild form of clinical depression.”
he said. “I will give you these tablets to ease her worry.They‟re harmless.” He put a bottle on
the table.“And that leaves us free to talk about what is really bothering you.”

“I don‟t want to talk about it.” Neel said.
DoctorFahim leaned back in his chair. “We agreed, at the start of the therapy sessions,
that there would be total trust and cooperation between us.”

 

“Therapy isn‟t helping me.” Neel said bitterly. “Two months I‟ve spent on it, and it‟s
worse than ever.”

 

“You have to give it time.” Doctor Fahim said quietly.

“I have given it time.” Neel‟s voice had risen suddenly. For the first time he
was looking
straight at the doctor.“I can‟t do it.” He dropped his gaze again and went back to studying the
floor in silence.

Doctor Fahim leaned back in his chair with a sigh. For a long time neither of them
spoke.

“I understand you are passing through a very stressful time right now.”
Doctor Fahim
said finally, his eyes trained on the ceiling, the tips of his fingers joined together. “Have you
talked to anyone outside of Swan Labs about what you‟re feeling?”

Neel shook his head.“I know I‟m not supposed to.” he mumbled.

“
You have an enormous amount of stress in your life.” Doctor Fahim spoke quietly. “It
is not easy to remain objective under such circumstances. But shutting yourself away from
your loved ones is not the answer, Neel. You are only hurting yourself further. We all want to
help you. But you need to let us in first.”

Neel continued to stare at the floor in silence. Doctor Fahim did not try to press him
further. Again there was silence in the room for several minutes.

“
I have come to realize that I really don‟t know you as wellas I thought.” Doctor Fahim
said at last in a conversational tone. “I believe you know more about my family than I do
about yours. Are you close to your mother?”

Neel did not respond at first
. But then he nodded quietly. “I love her more than anyone
else in the world.” he said in a low voice. “And I‟ve been lying to her for months.” Doctor
Fahim remained silent. Neel was determined to blame everything that was going wrong with
his life on his own actions. It was classic self destructive behavior. And in his present frame
of mind he would not listen to any arguments which would try to convince him otherwise.

“And your father?” DoctorFahim prompted gently. “I have never heard you speak of
him. Do you remember anything about him?”

 

Neel shook his head. “He died in Africa when I was a couple of months old.” he said,
his eyes still on the ground. “I‟ve only seen hispictures. Mom says I look a lot like him.”

“It must have been
difficult growing up with only one parent.” Doctor Fahim said, his
eyes fixed intently on Neel.“I imagine it must have been very lonely. For your mother, and
for you as well.”

“I‟m not the only one.” Neel
said. “There‟s another guy in my class, Arvind. He‟s the
class topper. His dad died when he was six years old. He lives with his mother and sister. His
mom doesn‟t make much, so he really wants to study hard so that he gets into some IIT
college and can get a good job and provide for them.”

“That is an admirable sentiment, and I sincerely hope he achieves his dream.” Doctor
Fahim said. “Do you often think about your father?”

Neel shrugged. The truth was, he had spent his whole life with one parent, and he was
used to it. Sometimes, of course, he wondered what it would have been like to have a father.
Sometimes he could not suppress a twinge of jealousy when he saw Aryan with his dad…

“
It ishow it‟s always been.” Neel said finally. “I have mom. And granvisits us. I‟ve
never met my dad, so Idon‟t know him well enough to miss him, or anything like that. I
don‟t have any memories of him. Only the stuff mom told me.” He stared at Doctor Fahim
and suddenlyadded in a burst of candor. “At the beginning, after you‟d talked to me about
the accidentand the project, I‟d wished he was there so I could ask him whatI should do.”

“I a
m sure he would have been proud of the choices you have made.” Doctor Fahim said
quietly. “And I am sure he would have hated to see you in this condition now. The love
between parents and their children is stronger than any other bond that humans can
experience. I would give everything I have, all the years of my life, to get my son back.” Neel
said nothing but he nodded slowly, and as he stared at Doctor Fahim he felt closer to him
than ever before. “I am sure your father tried very hard to return to you and your mother. It is
a terrible thing to love someone so much and yet never be able to meet them.”

They sat in silence again, but it was not the tense silence of before. For the first time in
days Neel was beginning to feel comfortable talking again.

“T
he experiences you have passed through this year,” Doctor Fahim continued after a
pause. “They required a great deal from you, and you have had to deal with it all alone,
without the support of your family and friends.”

“It‟s not been that bad.” Neel said quietly. “I had you, and Divya, and Arjun and Negi
and Premi. I never felt I was alone in this.”

 

“I am happy to hear that.” DoctorFahim said. “Even the General, despite his initial
reservations, was impressed with your work.”

“Yeah, he used to scare me.”
Neel said with a very small smile.“Still does a little.” He
was slowly starting to emerge from the shell of silence he had surrounded himself with. After
a long time, it was a relief to talk to someone he wouldn‟t have to lie to. Someone to tell all
the things he had thought about sitting in his room alone for all those hours.“But Mr. Rai was
always nice. And I know they just wanted the project to succeed.” Doctor Fahim nodded.

There was another pause.
“I‟ve been thinking about somethingelse, too.” he said finally.
“You asked me once why it was so important to me to go after Mehta even after finding out
about the PTSD thing. I wasn‟t really sure myself back then, but at some point while all of
this was going on, I realized why I still want to help with the missions.”
“And why is that?” Doctor Fahim asked, leaning in closer.

Neel hesitated for a second, trying to pickhis words carefully. “Do you remember what
I was like when I first came to Swan Labs? I mean aside from my powers.”

 

“You were a perfectly normal young boy.” Doctor Fahim replied, watching him intently

“Yeah, but that‟s not what I meant.” Neel leaned in closer
as well as he tried to explain.
“Before this project, I had never done anything that felt, you know, important. I was never
very good at anything either.”

“
It is not necessary to be the best at something to be happy.” Doctor Fahim said in a
strangely tired voice.“Trust me, I know that from years of experience. You were exactly
what a normal, healthy young boy should have been like.”

“I was just ordinary.” Neel said
in a low but steady voice. “I wasn‟t good enough to get
into any teams at school. I tried to study hard, but I was never among the toppers in class. I
didn‟t have any talents or any special skills or anything. If you‟d told me then, that I was to
be trained and made into a soldier, and help fight criminals, I would never have believed you.
During the first few days, I wassure I wouldn‟t be able to handle it. But I was too scared to
say it out loud.”

“But you did handle it.” DoctorFahim said. “You handled it exceptionally well!”

“Exactly!” Neel said, enthusiasm creeping into his voice for the first time. “It was
amazing, and exciting, and looked impossible at first. But then I realized I could do it. I could
learn whatever Arjun and Negi and Premi taught me. For the first time in my life, I was really
good at something!”

“And how do you think this change came about?” Doctor Fahim asked.

“Because for the first time in my life, I felt I was doing something
that was really
mattered.” Neel said. “I‟d found something that was really important. More important than
getting into a team, or scoring marks. More important than me. I didn‟t think that I was
allowed to fail, and I worked harder on it than I have ever done in my life. And it worked. I
felt like I was actuallymaking a difference.” Neel voice trailed away and he sat back in his
seat. Doctor Fahim was smiling at him now.

“And then I blew it.” Neel said, his voice turning unexpectedly bitter. “I grew
overconfident. Arjun and the others warned me about it. But Ididn‟t listen, and that cost me
the mission.”

“Your PTSD condition cost you the mission, Neel.” Doctor Fahim said steadily. “And
that was something that was out of your control.”

“Yeah, well.” Neel shrugged, looking down again. “But that‟s why I wanted to complete
this mission. This is the only thing in my life thatI‟ve ever taken seriously, and I wanted to
see it through to itsend.”

He shook his head slowly
. “But now.” He said in a low voice. “Now I can‟t hear a car
pass by without feelingafraid, even though I know it‟s stupid. I‟m this complete…
mess
.”
Tears were forming in his eyes again. He fought them back fiercely, butcouldn‟t stop the
words from pouring out.“This weak little crybaby who‟s too scared to do anything but cry
and hide in his bedroom.” His fists were clenched tightly as his sides as he struggled to keep
the tears at bay.

“Any person who can look at the world and find nothing to c
ry about is either blind or a
fool.” Doctor Fahim said in a quiet voice.“Neel,look at me.” His voice was gentle, but it felt
like an order. Neel raised his headslowly. “Your tears do not make you a coward or a weak
person. They show that even after gaining all these powers and witnessing the ugliness of the
world, you still feel your emotions just as intensely as before. You still have a conscience,
and you still care just as much about your mother and your friends. It hurts you to think that
you are failing them. You have great strength of character, Neel. That is what separates you
from the criminals you hunted.”

“It‟s not enough.” Neel said,
barely managingto keep his voice from shaking. “I have all
this power, and all you people helping me, and it‟s still not enough. I tell myself it‟s all in my
head, butI can‟t… I justcan‟t…”

Neel lowered his face into his hands as his shoulders began to shake. Doctor Fahim rose
swiftly from his seat and was beside him in an instant, holding onto the thin frame that
seemed anything but impervious at the moment. There was a profound sadness in Doctor
Fahim‟s eyes ashe cradled Neel‟s head in his arms.

“I wish I could tell you that
one daythis will all pass.” he spoke at last in a low voice
filled with grief. “I wish I could tell you that one day you will recover completely, and this
incident will be banished forever from your mind. And I wish I could tell you that you
nothing will ever hurt you like this again.” Doctor Fahim took a deep breath and spoke
slowly. “But I can‟t. You will live. And you will fall. And you will hurt and you will cry. We
all have to go through it. It is a cycle that repeats itself all through our lives, and it will make
you want to give up time and again. Butyou can‟t. You do not exist in this world alone, and
your pain hurts those who love you. For your mother and your friend‟s sake as much as your
own, be strong, Neel.” His arms tightened around the young boy. “The older you grow, the
more scared of life you become. Because you begin to understand your own limits, your
helplessness, and move ever closer to your mortality. But it should be a gradual process. We
talk about preventing waste. Of our time, our energies, ourresources. But don‟t you see? If
you shut yourself off from emotions and experiences, that is the greatest waste of all. The
waste of your life! Because what else is life for if not to see it in all its shades? From the
darkest to the brightest! If you spend your youth hiding in your house, you will only ever
watch life pass you by. And that is as great a waste as taking your own life. You have to have
hope, Neel. You have to have hope for a better tomorrow.” Neel sat staring at the ground, the
words ringing in his ears. For a long time the two remained motionless, holding onto each
other.