After changing tires with my girlfriend

Subway Ride

The old guy next to me on the subway was staring right at my belly. I pulled out my phone, ready to call 911.

Then he croaked out, “Kid, that little spirit in your belly? It’s been swapped out.”

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I stared at him, dumbfounded. This dude had white hair and a beard, but he was surprisingly spry, definitely not your average Joe.

“You know, you shouldn’t just let anyone touch your belly when you’re pregnant,” he went on. “And not only did someone touch it, but it was another pregnant woman.

“She’s messing with dark stuff, and she’s pulled a switcheroo on you. She put her dead baby in your belly and took your healthy one.”

I racked my brain. I hadn’t been feeling too great lately. There was this nagging ache in my lower abdomen, and I was waking up in the middle of the night in pain. Plus, I was sleeping like crap and having some real doozy nightmares. Could there actually be something wrong with the baby?

“I had a checkup at the hospital, and everything was fine,” I said, still skeptical.

The old guy stroked his beard. “That’s because she did the switch after your checkup. You go now, the results might not be so good.”

I felt this creeping dread and decided to skip my walk in the park and head straight to the hospital.

“Hey, can I get your number? Just in case,” I asked him.

He pulled out his old flip phone and we exchanged numbers. As I was leaving, he said, “We met for a reason, kid. I can fix this for you in the next three days, after that even God can’t help you.”

That freaked me out, and I practically ran off the train.

A quick checkup at the hospital revealed something terrifying. The doctor told me I had a missed miscarriage.

“How is that possible? Last week my checkup was perfect.” I couldn’t believe it.

The doctor mumbled a bunch of medical jargon and concluded it was best to get it taken care of ASAP.

I used the “I need to talk to my partner” excuse and walked out in a daze.

As I walked past the nurses’ station, I overheard them whispering.

“There are so many miscarriages these days. There was this pretty young mom the other day, she didn’t want to get the procedure done.”

“Yeah, people are stressed, lots of pollution, they're just not healthy anymore. I wonder what happened to her? She never came back.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. The old guy's words echoed in my head –

“She put her dead baby in your belly and took your healthy one. You let another pregnant lady touch your belly.”

The only pregnant woman I'd been around recently was my best friend, Sarah.

I turned around and headed back to the nurses. “Excuse me, what was the name of the woman you were talking about? The one who had the miscarriage? I’d like to connect with her and get her advice.”

They looked at each other awkwardly. “We can’t give out patient information.”

I pulled out my phone, flipped to a picture of Sarah and I. “Is this her? She’s my best friend, we both go to this hospital for checkups.”

The nurse took one look and gasped, “Y...