A Legendary Love

Chapter One

She quickly ran across the road as a taxi blared its horn at her. Holding out her open hand in a gesture of apology, she threw a casual glance in its direction. As she made it to the other side of the road safely, she pulled her phone out of her handbag to check the address of the café she was meant to be meeting her mother in. Jen's mother always chose 'bistros' that were expensive and upper-class; something Jen didn't particularly care for. She was more the cheap and cheerful sort – after all, she still had her crippling student loan to pay back, and she wasn't making much progress with that when her only income was her minimum wage admin job.

As she entered the café, she was assaulted with the smell of overly sweet perfume and coffee. Wearing Chanel No. 5 was all very well, but 'everything in moderation' was not a rule the women that frequented these establishments lived by. To them, everything had to be extravagant and expensive and everyone had to know about it. What was the point in being wealthy if you didn't flaunt that fact?

"Jennifer! Over here, darling!" her mother called loudly from the other side of the café. Jen squeezed herself past the other coffee drinkers as she made her way over to the table where her mother sat, perfect hair, perfect tan, perfect manicure, perfect make up, perfect pastel outfit.

Taking a seat, Jen mentally prepared herself for an onslaught of criticism.

"Your hair looks gorgeous, today, Jennifer," Elizabeth said, surprising her daughter. Jen self-consciously ran her hand through her brown hair which fell just below her shoulders. She found it interesting that the day she had done nothing but dry her hair, so it just fell in a natural wave, was the day that her mother gave her a compliment. "Is that a new outfit?" Elizabeth continued. Jen looked down at her ripped skinny jeans, and oversized shirt, before looking up at her mother with a singular eyebrow raised.

"You went one compliment too far there, Mum," Jen sighed, wiping make-up from under her eye. "I'm assuming Georgie told you what happened?" Jen made a mental note to never trust her younger sister with information she didn't want getting back to her mother.

"Could you not try and make amends, darling?" Elizabeth pleaded with her eldest daughter. Jonathan had been such a wonderful addition to the family. He was such a kind and loving boy, with quite a well-known family. The boy was due to takeover his father's very profitable business someday, therefore Elizabeth could rest at ease, knowing her eldest daughter would be provided for.

Jen snorted – it was just like her mother to take the side of the charming man with the well-known, distinguished family, rather than that of her daughter. However, Elizabeth was unaware of the way in which Jonathan had treated Jen, especially when it came to their break-up.

"It's been fun, Jenny, but all good things must come to an end, and I think that we're probably past our sell-by date," Jonathan told her as he handed her a duffel bag of the last of her clothes and things. "Maybe, if we're both free sometime we can have the occasional no-strings-attached catch-up, but I don't see us having a future, and I think it would be unfair for you to waste my time when I need to be out there finding someone I can have kids with. You're just... not someone I can see me spending the rest of my life with."

"You couldn't have told me this before I gave up my flat to move in with you?" Jen asked, angrily, standing up and storming out of the flat.

"Look, Mum, I don't appreciate you dragging me out to the other end of London just to scold me for letting someone dump me for no good reason after stringing me along for two and a half years. Jonathan has decided that he doesn't want to be with me, so there's nothing that I can do about it. – and at this point, I don't particularly want to make amends!"