Of Mochas and Macchiatos

Part 20

I do love Noah, wholly platonically. And I trust him more than I trust myself sometimes, and so I resolve to try, just a little bit harder, to stay with Rafe. Sometimes I get fleeting thoughts that perhaps the curse Is Not Real. But, deep within my heart, I truly know it exists. And, as my nightmares dictate, I believe that I will eventually be drawn to the Nile and will knowingly, perhaps even willingly, throw myself into the deep blue of the sea.

And yet, in those brief seconds of freedom, I imagine staying with Rafe.

I do, however, get a call from the landlady that my apartment will be ready to move back into in a few weeks. And I deliberate over telling Rafe yet. I text Maria about it, and then realise I haven't called my parents for a while so I add that to my to-do list.

The morning is so cold. Tiny icicles droop from storefronts and the skeletal winter remains of the trees. I regret not bringing a beanie and I consider untying my hair from its high ponytail to keep my ears a bit warmer. As we're walking along the footpath towards Tilbury's, Rafe in front, on his phone, Gareth, who walks beside me, entwines his hands in my hair. I turn to him, curiously.

"Sorry!" He says, instantly letting go. "It's just so curly today, like Betty Cooper's hair, you know? And soft too. I just wanted to touch it." Rafe turns back for a brief second to laugh at my bemused expression. "Aren't you cold though?" Gareth, wisely albeit ridiculously, wears a fluffy hat with Pom Pom bobbles. I flick one of the little puffs of fur on his beanie and sigh.

"Yes, but..."

Gareth nudges me in the ribs with his elbow. "Yes?"

"Ow," I say in turn, my tone dry, sarcastic. "That hurt!" I laugh, it didn't really. I've got so many layers on beneath my heavy MaxMara coat that I feel like a marshmallow. "Okay. I don't want to have it out cos it looks so good right now, right?"

"Yeah. Very Riverdale."

"Well, I thought it looked like Alpha-helices, or maybe DNA coils." Gareth raises an eyebrow and throws a glance towards Rafe who has his back to us, as if maybe Rafe can help him to discern what an Alpha-helix is. In response to Rafe's lack of a reply, Gareth shrugs, his hands deep within his pockets.

"Uh, what is an alpha...? Apart from me, of course!" I throw him a wry smile and roll my eyes and he ruffles my ponytail again. "C'mon, spill."

"Okay. So proteins are typically made up of three or four kinda structure layers, right?" I say, trying to make everything as basic as possible.

"So, the primary structure is a whole line of amino acids, just like a string of beads. The secondary one gives it a three dimensional structure, so it's made up of Alpha-helixes and Beta-pleated sheets. The Beta pleated sheets are kinda like zig zags." I carve a fingernail through the crisp morning air. To the right, up down up down up down down, then to the left, up down up down up down, again.

"On the other hand," I take my right hand out of my pocket and smile a bit when I realise, because A-helixes are right hand coils, but I don't tell Gareth that- I am trying to keep it simple. I trace my finger through the air to demonstrate, the diamond on my ring glinting in the light. "Alpha-helixes are like coils. The peptide chain -uh, amino acid beads that we were talking about before- curls up into this spiral conformation that is held together by hydrogen bonds. And it looks kinda like this." I grasp a handful of my hair and show Gareth.

"But also, I feel like some of my strands, haha strands, because DNA?" Gareth doesn't get the pun. "Uh, they look like DNA spirals, see? So DNA is coiled up into chromosomes inside of our cells, in the nucleus. And it gets all twisted because of these hydrogen bonds, like what I said before, remember? So hydrogen bonding is strongest in molecules which contain lots of fluorine, oxygen and nitrogen. I always remember it with the mnemonic that hydrogen bonding is FON, like fun." I laugh a bit, so caught up in my own spiel. "Anyways, so, there are these nitrogenous bases in nucleic acids -the DNA- and as they contain nitrogen they undergo hydrogen bonding. Those bases, they kinda form the steps of the twisted staircase that make up the DNA coils. Like my hair."