Then he returned once more. “What’d you forget this time?” I asked, amused by his forgetfulness.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just wanted one more kiss for good luck.”

I texted him shortly after because I forgot to ask what time he thought he’d be done. Noonish, he said. I volleyed with: Lunch after? He replied back: Chipotle. And my craving for a burrito bowl instantly kicked in.

Alone in the house that morning, I treated myself to a Postmates delivery of a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich on a biscuit and noshed on it mindlessly as I read all the latest celebrity gossip on TMZ. A controversial outfit Beyoncé wore to an awards show, a feud between teenage rappers, the details of a celeb’s tumultuous divorce—this was the kind of stuff Decker would make fun of me for caring about. So I enjoyed my guilty pleasures by myself, wiping my buttery fingers on my plaid Old Navy pajama pants in between blog posts.

When I finally read what felt like every gossip article on the internet, I checked my phone and saw several missed calls and texts. None were from Decker, but all of them were about him. They ranged from “Have you heard from Decker?” to “Did you hear what happened to Decker?” to “Cedars-Sinai. ICU. Now.” My phone had accidentally been on silent.

Before I could figure out my next move, there was knocking at the door. When I opened it, Brian—donned in pristine race attire, not a speck of dirt on him—put his hands on my shoulders and told me the worst thing had happened. Moments after the starting bell, Decker had collapsed twenty feet from the line and was rushed, unresponsive, to the hospital.

Flash forward a week and Dr. Brandt was asking me: “What do you want to do here, Mrs. Austin?”

“Why are you asking me that?” I said as I paced the width of the hospital room, which was exactly nine footsteps.

“Well, I’m afraid we’ve come to that point and you’re the next of kin, Mrs. Austin,” he said, glancing at his chart. His face looked like the chubby old bald white guys from the vintage game Guess Who?

Next of kin. Three simple words I never thought would rise to the top of the list of adjectives that accurately described me. But somehow there I was, standing next to a trauma doctor I’d only met a few days before, being told that my husband of less than a year was unconscious and unable to specify his DNR wishes, which was medical speak for: He’s not going to make it without this machine and you can’t take it home with you, so now what?

We discussed it as a group—me, my parents, Decker’s parents, the medical team—ad nauseam. But the more we talked about it, the more confused and stuck I became about the whole situation. What were we waiting for? A miracle? The doctor told us Decker wasn’t going to make it. Was I the only one who had heard him?