Chosen — By Andrew Fisher

artwork by Brian McCafferty

‍Present Day — Henry Ford Medical Center

A nurse hands me a hospital gown and tells me to leave only my underwear on underneath.

Only your underwear.

Something in me pulls back. It always does.

Sixteen years ago I almost didn’t make it out of this hospital. Basilar artery occlusion. Now the symptoms are back — not all of them, but enough to bring me back to this floor, this gown, this cold.

I step into the waiting room. A woman stares at her hands. A man by the window flips through a magazine he isn’t reading. I slide into a chair and try to arrange the gown between my skin and the cold plastic. It’s so thin it doesn’t matter how I arrange it.

I’m still exposed. Still cold.

Calm down, Andrew. Come on.

My hands are already gripping the chair arms. The clipboard sits in my lap. The words blur — I forgot my glasses — and no matter how I squint, the forms soften into fog. My eyes are watering. From the strain, maybe. Or maybe something else.

A soft click somewhere down the hall.

My jaw locks.

A chill shakes me.

The latch turned.

Body first.

Mind next.

And I slip.

Early Spring, Iowa, 1980s

Muggy. The air still thick from the night before. Coach’s truck idling out front, my brothers yelling, Come on, Andy. They’re going to leave without you. I grabbed my glove, my hat. Forgot my cup. Ran back inside.

Coach’s son was home from college, helping out for the summer. Older. Confident. The kind of guy who made you want to be noticed by him. On the ride over, the other boys joked around with him like they’d known him forever. I sat in the back corner of the truck bed, arms around my knees, watching.

At practice we had an odd number of players. I was always the one without a partner. He noticed. Warmed up with me himself — tossing the ball back and forth, saying things like good arm and there you go. I felt chosen.  

When Coach asked if I had my cup, I nodded. Still in the box. Still didn’t know how to put it on. My dad hadn’t shown me. Coach laughed, said it wouldn’t do much good in there, and called his son over.

Go help him get sorted out.

His hand landed on my shoulder. Warm. Steering. He walked me toward the restroom near the concession stand, and I went because that’s what you did — you followed the older kid who finally saw you. The one who tossed the ball back. The one who made you feel like you belonged.

Inside, he flipped on the light. Directed me into a stall.

Then he followed me in.

The door closed. The latch turned.

He told me to take off my pants. I looked at him. He explained — the cup goes in the strap, the strap goes on first, this is what all the guys do. His voice was easy. Casual.

I told myself: He’s just helping.

I didn’t want to take off my pants. I didn’t want to be exposed in front of him. But he assured me. Put his hand on my shoulder again. It’ll be okay.

I hesitated. Then slowly put my fingers inside the waistband.

Your underwear too.

Something in me pulled back. I didn’t know what to call it — only that his hand on my shoulder felt heavy now, like it was pushing me forward when I wanted to stop.

I pulled everything down. Rested my hand on his shoulder to keep my balance. That small, awful dependency.

He guided the straps up. Slowly. Then he stopped.

His hands rested on me. And then he began to touch me — in places that had nothing to do with the cup. The inside of my thighs. Up higher. Deliberate.

I felt sick. Cold. Alone in a way I hadn’t been sixty seconds before.

Then he pulled the strap the rest of the way up and told me to get dressed. Unlatched the door. Left like he’d simply helped me with my laces.

I just stood there for a moment after he left. Then I followed.

I didn’t know if I’d done something wrong.

On the way back to the field his hand found my shoulder again. Same hand. Same weight. The other boys were still tossing balls. Still laughing. I found my spot and went through the motions — glove up, catch, throw — but I was somewhere just behind myself, watching.

From that day forward he always paid more attention to me than the others. Always knew where I was.

“Hey, Andy,” he’d say, easy as anything. “Let’s go check your equipment.”

Always the restroom.

Always the latch.

Always the check.

I started to dread hearing my own name in his mouth.

The touching became more involved over the course of the summer. Eventually, he guided me to touch him.

I kept going to practice. I didn’t know how not to. I just got quieter. Smaller. Careful not to be found out for what I was sure I was doing wrong.

I didn’t speak of what happened that summer. Not then. Not for decades.

Present Day — Henry Ford Medical Center

A soft click — the latch releasing somewhere down the hall.

A shiver runs through me. My jaw releases. The cold settles back in.

“Andrew Fisher… Andrew…”

I blink. My hands are clenched around the clipboard. I’ve been holding my breath.

I exhale slowly.

I’m here.

Andrew Fisher is an emerging nonfiction writer based in Indiana, where he is raising twin boys as a solo parent. A stroke survivor and advocate who has spoken before congressional members on Capitol Hill, his work explores trauma, inherited silence, and the quiet courage it takes to break generational cycles. His writing centers on showing up—especially when presence is all you can give—and is drawn from a completed memoir-in-progress.