Chapter 99: True To Form

Unknown College Dorm, Unknown City, Unknown State...

(Years Prior....)

 Fear and anxiety coursed through a formerly loaded and college-aged Ryker Kennison as he found himself sitting up in a strange bed in one of the dorm rooms that had not belonged to him. He'd been naked and feeling the effects of a good deal of booze and drugs. His stomach had been in knots both from the churning effect of the booze and the fact that he'd been more than sure he'd had sex with a blonde girl he'd met at one of the dorm parties. Ryker had been anxious since he had not remembered much of what happened other than her riding him when he came to and that he'd told her ahead of time that he had a girlfriend. Being new to college, Ryker had not anticipated the number of girls that would be interested in him despite his insistence that he'd been more interested in his younger girlfriend who had still been in high school.

Her name was Sera, Sera Cates, who would later be known as the late Sera Kennison in the distant future.

Sera was the daughter of Jackyln and Carl Cates and she'd been the most popular girl in her year. Her tough attitude and no-nonsense manner had been what drove most boys her age away but not Ryker Kennison, he'd been dating Sera since his Junior year and graduated just before she had become a Senior herself. Now a Freshman in college, they kept up a long-distance relationship despite her parents disapproval of him. Her father thought he'd been too old for his daughter and her mother just didn't like the look of him.

They had been wealthy people and had been thinking of a means to secure their older daughter's best interests, college-aged lower middle-class Ryker Kennison had not been what was best for her in their collective eyes. Sera had never leaned on her parents' wealth, and social standing, she always preferred to do things herself and she'd been a force to be reckoned with because of it.

Ryker had been nervous about attending college and didn't like the idea of being so far away from Sera but had gone with her blessing and the insistence of both his parents and hers. He had been in a state of panic when he awoke to find a blonde college-age girl riding his cock and he didn't even have a condom on in the process. He had no use for them due to dating Sera and they had never been intimate aside from occasional over-the-clothes action. Ryker had been expressly faithful to Sera and she had been the same in return, it was the only reason her parents had finally stopped being so against their being together, that and he'd been destined to be away at college in the long run.

What had made the event all the worse had been that his college had not been that far from Sera and that she'd been riding with her elder sister Karen, who had been on the way to see her boyfriend Kal, who had gone to the same school and so she tagged along to come and visit Ryker.

The horror that filed across his grief-stricken face when he climbed out of the bed and found himself face to face with Sera who'd been in tears was enough to break him then and there. He chased after her in only his boxers as she let him have it in front of everyone in attendance. Including the wretched blonde who had done this to him. She was getting a kick out of the break-up just as she had with every freshman she previously targeted when she knew they had a girlfriend.

"Sera....Sera wait..." Ryker fumbled over his words and own feet as he rounded the corner and stepped out into the open air right behind a fuming Sera Cates.

He managed to get ahold of her arm and attempted to plead his case with thousands of students watching the spectacle. Ryker had been horrible at explaining the situation and Sera had not believed him in the least. The tears streamed down her cheeks did little to quell her fury and she reared back and slapped the desperate younger Ryker across his face leaving a mark and stinging pain for days to come.

"Sera I know this looks bad but please...please don't leave me." he had been reduced to begging, the worst possible thing a young man like him could do in front of a crowd of people his age and older but he didn't care in the least, he had loved Sera and it didn't bother him in the least how it looked with a college freshman begging a high school senior to remain his girlfriend.

He reached for her only to find himself stumbling over his own feet in desperation as she moved just out of his grasp. Ryker had not cared what anyone in the college thought about his display of desperation, he couldn't let Sera go without at least trying to salvage what they had but he could see the coldness behind her eyes and how much she had not been moved by his display of affection even in the face of severe humiliation.

Sera remarked on how truly pathetic he'd looked and filed into her sister's car without so much as a backward glance. Still, she let him know she never wanted to see him again, much to the delight of her older sister who had been basking in Ryker's misery in that moment. Ryker had never liked Rachel, believing her to have been the worst kind of influence for Sera when everything had been said and done, she'd forever been a stooge of sorts when it came to the will of her rich parents. 

They pulled off and that had been nearly the last time Ryker had ever seen Sera Cates, as for his time in school, the breakup left him severely bitter, and as a result, he had never cared to date. Due to the reputation of his more physical attributes spreading like wildfire in the wake of the humiliation of being dumped by a younger woman and the gossip passing from a certain blonde, he'd gotten the attention of plenty of girls, but he simply used them and went on his way nothing serious ever developed and he turned his attention to earning a very lucrative business degree full-time.

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 Sera a few years later found out her sister had a hand in orchestrating their unceremonious breakup due to her family not wanting her to be with him, but she and Ryker had lost touch with her deleting his number and him focusing on college to the point that he never came home for the holidays or breaks. The very next time they had run into each other had been a few years down the line, he'd completed his degree and she'd been in her last year of college, she'd been working as a waitress while still attending her final year in college and he'd been working as a used car salesman at some run of the mill lot that he'd been more than over since the day he'd gotten the job. They had run into each other when he'd come into her place of business as a customer on his lunch break. She and her then-best friend Evelyn Towers, had been working a double shift and he'd been the only decently behaved customer they'd had for a while.

Ryker noticed that he'd recalled seeing her somewhere before and a chat led to them recalling the last time they'd seen each other, Ryker had been surprised to know that Sera wasn't dating and that she knew all about her sister setting him up with her friend after they had spiked his drink at a so-called welcoming party. She had not spoken to her family for quite some time after finding out about their plot and resented them for it even then. Ryker had introduced her to Malcolm Reeves, who had gone to a different college than him despite their growing up together for years before he departed from their hometown when his family had moved a few years back. 

The four of them had become fast friends, despite Malcolm already being newly married and with a son on the way. He'd been more or less interested in Sera and her hold on his oldest friend given his less-than-ideal reputation following their breakup. Ryker and Sera's reconciliation had prompted their renewed romantic attachment and after a night of reckless behavior on their part, Sera ended up pregnant with Kevin which prompted him to take charge of his future for both their sakes and he borrowed what remained of his parents' savings and took out a loan from a local bank in a bid to get his business off the ground and a home set up for himself and Sera before the arrival of their unborn child. 

His gamble paid off as the business began to take off and they scored a good deal on a house before he asked Sera to marry him. It wasn't exactly a shotgun wedding but it was in large part due to his having gotten Sera pregnant, a rather familiar situation that seemed to follow him into the future. 

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In the present, the man known as Ken Ryker awoke lying on his back in the old cemetery beside his long-dead wife's grave. He'd continued his party of sorts downing a good deal of booze since his arrival before he found himself coming back to his senses, or whatever had passed for them as the memories of his life before the accident bombarded him until he had no choice but to actively seek to suppress them. It was a wonder that he'd been sober enough to drive when he got to his feet and dusted his disheveled suit and attempted to slick back his messy hair. He hated remembering them, it never seemed to do him any favors, but the recollection of Sera due to the romp with the particular blonde hooker, Bunny, and their younger son's impending birthday had been something he couldn't outright pretend he had not known about. Ken found that he'd still been alone as he slowly made his way out of the cemetery and back toward where he'd recalled his car being. 

He'd been determined to put as much distance between himself and the graves of his family as possible before the effects of his grogginess had fully worn off.