I have told no one in the world the full extent of this story. I'm going to leave out small storylines and side characters because this story spans an 11 month time period. In the beginning it's a little boring but stick with me; it gets insane. I, an 18 year old girl, fell in love with a girl (in my grade, went to school together since middle school, had so many mutual friends, were always acquaintances) early December 2019 during a five day school sleepover trip for our senior year. She is about 5'4-5'5, dirty blond shoulder length hair, sporty body type (athlete), ocean blue eyes (so that you can picture it a little bit better). She had the best personality of anyone I had ever met and was always so humble, fun, had a great sense of humor, and was so caring but also very outgoing as well and would never be in any type of drama ever. She is the type of person that is friends with everyone and never has a problem with anyone. It was so funny and surprising to me because I never thought of her much at all, let alone like that (or any GIRL for that matter, honestly quite scary to me). I will call her H for this story's purposes. I remember the exact day: December 7, 2019. Our bus broke down in a dirt path in the middle of nowhere Southern Florida for three hours. I was simply sitting in my seat half asleep listening to the chatter of everyone on the trip with me when I heard H speak and got an unexplainable feeling that she was unlike anyone else I had ever met up to this point. I know it's weird but I had daydreams of us driving around listening to music and talking about everything and just spending life together forever. Then my mind wandered to thinking about if she even likes girls, but I didn't worry too much about that because her entire persona suggested that she most likely does when I thought long and hard about it. As the trip came to an end, I realized that I was going to have no reason to see much of H anymore, which was quite sad to me. We always had a snapchat streak so I would try to start conversations and find things in common. I invited her to things along with our mutual friends but I just always noticed that she was on FaceTime with this girl sometimes (didn't think much of it but obviously I was hyperaware of everything relating to H so I had my suspicions with no evidence). She didn't go to our school and I had never seen her before in my life. I'm going to call her L. I was basically in as much "debt" as a teenager could be as a senior, so I was looking around for a new job (that's a whole other unrelated story). H had mentioned that her Dunkin' Donuts may be hiring so I jumped on that opportunity and I was hired right after New Years (which I spent with H as well as many of my other friends). Along with the stress of a new job, I realized that L was H's coworker and lived in a neighboring town to ours. Here is a description of L: one year younger than us (HS junior at the time), long dark brown wavy hair, tan Italian skin, big brown eyes, maybe about 5'6, medium body type. I was able to feel the strong connection between L and H in early January even though I highly doubted myself and chalked it up to me projecting my own emotions and suspicion. I confided in my good friend T (also great friends with H, one of the best and most trustworthy people I know) about my suspicions regarding L and H; it honestly felt good to talk about with her. During the rest of the winter, I would become better and better friends with H, even switching into her first period class after getting a modified schedule (seniors have the option to leave early and work). I went to H's basketball games and went to parties and basically just lived my life as a normal teenager, not thinking too deeply about my little crush. I would see her at school and school functions and sometimes hang out in groups but nothing too interesting happened. However, everything changed in March. When the pandemic hit and shut down our school, I panicked a little knowing I wouldn't really see much of her besides at work. My friend M had a little party/sleepover and needed to cut the guest list after her mom realized the seriousness of COVID at the time and I made sure that H stayed invited. I would get so excited every time I saw her and make every effort to become closer friends but it proved a little bit more difficult than expected. H, T, my other friend J, and others would have weekend group FaceTime calls where we would drink mixed drinks and talk since we could never go out (of course mostly orchestrated by me). At one point, it was just me and H on the call and somehow L came up in conversation. I mentioned that I wanted to be friends with her and she seemed like such a fun person (we were coworkers after all). Naturally, H added her to the call and the three of us started having regular group conversations. The two of them were so unlike any of my other friends and I really envied that type of close friendship and trust between two people. L started a Snapchat streak with me and I was excited about the beginning of a new friendship. I had a "Run Club" group chat with H, J, and a couple other of our mutual friends where we would plan meetups to go on runs in the park or go on drives because there really was no other way of social interaction during the beginning of the pandemic. One day, L snapped me and I knew she was in H's car and was also holding her phone. So, I texted Run Club group chat "does anyone want to go for a drive" and L did exactly what I hoped and predicted she would: snapped me saying "want us to pick you up?". That was the first time the three of us hung out in a group. Throughout the entire spring of 2020, we went on so many drives and hung out many times and we all became a fairly close-knit three group of best friends. We would have sleepovers where we drank and all cuddled at each one of our houses. The entire friendship felt so different and I had never experienced people that act the way they did. Honestly, at the time, I thought it was different in a really good way. NEVER did I predict its toxic outcome. My primary friend group were not leaving their houses because of coronavirus, so I did not see them much until April or May, but they did express a bit of jealousy when I talked about H and L. The three of us went on adventures to the beach and to nature type places, cliff jumping, swimming in the cold ocean, and just so many spontaneous adventures that brought me so much joy. I thought that I had finally found my people. There were so many things different about H and L's relationship with each other that was so abnormal for best friends. They would do every day things for each other (hair brushing, feeding each other, dress each other, etc.). They would talk and talk to each other and never run out of things to say and I would get jealous at times when they excluded me (unintentionally I may add) from conversation. They would talk about how much they have changed each other for the good and have fake arguments for fun. I remember a specific instance where we drove to several different Walmarts so that they could buy HANDCUFFS to handcuff themselves together (me in the backseat of H's car as always of course). L had a countdown for when H would leave for college 3 hours away. I still remember the day: August 20, 2020. I have dropped so many subtle hints and spoken cryptically (it got worse and more frequent as time went on) to both of them about them being in love. It sometimes had interesting results, but no one ever spoke outright about love. Throughout all of these months, I honestly felt like a side character in someone else's magic soulmate story. I still remained hopeful because at this point I felt quite stuck and did not have any other options because I still loved H (more every time I saw her) and wanted to spend more and more time with her, and L was a great new friend but she made me insanely jealous. I may also add that H had a boyfriend up until May although it never seemed serious and seemed a bit off. I remember during May quarantine, H and I walked a marathon. H's boyfriend was getting mad that she never texted him and always seemed dry/putting in no effort and she expressed her utter boredom with him to me, and talked around it when I suggested a breakup. I may add that during the entire marathon that we walked for EIGHT HOURS, H was sending L long talking videos, snap texting her, and on the phone with her for a majority of time but little to no communication with her confused boyfriend. At this point, I still had to convince myself that my mind was making up a relationship between H and L and it was all in my head since there were also things that suggested that they were just friends. My brain played ping pong in silence with itself for months. In mid July, I invited H and L to my beach house along with my primary friend group for two weeks. Jealousy and tension grew worse and worse and my hints/cryptic speak got more and more aggressive as time went on. I won't go into too much detail because a lot went down but you can only imagine the drunk tears (mostly mine but no one knew why I was crying), passive aggression, sleeping arrangement issues, and frustration that these weeks at the beach entailed. I will go more into detail with my cryptic speak. It was mostly playing certain songs and singing with the lyrics that related to the situation, posting acronyms/metaphors to my story, and just talking like I "knew" something. I will admit this was all completely childish behavior but I was feeling such a high level of pain and powerlessness at this point. L got really fed up with me at several different points. Everything changed after the beach trip. We all knew that H was leaving for college soon (I forgot to add that my college is not housing students as of now because of corona so I would be staying put) and emotions were high. They began to not invite me to things, minimal communication with me, and I would confront them every time (intense apologies ensued) but it happened over and over. They turned off their location for me. Tensions grew stronger. I would look for clues and proof of this secret relationship between H and L everywhere and it killed me, causing so much stress and sadness. At this point in time (late summer), I was completely convinced that it was not all in my head. They had to be dating; there was no other explanation. T, J, and I conversed about it frequently and it was the only thing that was keeping me somewhat sane. I do not know how this began, but I started to look at H's liked videos on TikTok and began seeing ones relating to soulmates, dating your best friend, and long distance relationships. This was somewhat confirmation for me because there was no other possible explanation for the extreme influx of H's liking of these TikToks that perfectly fit the situation. After H left for college (which was really really emotional for everyone), L and I began to hang out a lot and have sleepovers where we would drink just the two of us (the alcohol would lower my inhibitions and make my hints even more aggressive). I remember the day that I cryptically brought up liked TikTok videos and confessed that I watch people's all the time to find out more information about them. The next day, H had privated her liked videos. I just felt a wall of secrecy and it always felt like they were plotting against me essentially, even though that may seem dramatic. There have been multiple times where L made the drive to visit H at college and I have never felt such feelings of sadness, powerlessness, jealousy, and betrayal in my life. I have said stuff about it and I just get long drawn out excuses. Things like this have began to affect me less and less over time and I have become numb to the fact that I will never be anything significant to H and I can never compare to L no matter what I do. The night before Halloween (Friday night), a week and a couple days ago, L and I had another alcohol sleepover like always. This time, we did not talk about cryptic things as much and it was mostly just a fun time with good conversation. We always tend to overdo it and we ended up taking 10 shots. I laid in bed beside her (she was sleeping) and I really could not sleep. It was a mixture of a racing mind and intoxication, but I made a decision that I never thought I ever would. I betrayed L's trust in search of confirmation for the theory that eats away at me every single day. Despite everything, she has always been so good to me and I have never actually thought ill of her, no matter the jealousy that I may feel. I picked up her phone and looked through her text messages with H, taking photos of it with my phone, hands shaking, heart pounding, and chest hurting. They had been dating secretly since that week at my beach house and are completely in love. They talked about marriage and being soulmates. No one else knew at this point. This is when I ran to my basement at 3AM, calling J and T immediately with the news. I was in a state of complete and utter shock, disbelief, and heartache. I know that J and T would never tell anyone about H and L's secret and they are the most trustworthy people I know (also really good friends of H, L has made huge efforts to become close to them as well). A week has gone by since this time, and I have stopped thinking about it and being in shock as much as before. However, yesterday, I felt the need to tell a fellow coworker and friend, R. R is a gay guy that is me and H's age. He goes to community college, is a bit plump with a lot of hair and pale skin, and arguably my favorite coworker. He is friends with L, H, and I. I wanted to tell him so badly for some reason just because it feels so good to confide in people, especially when you know for a fact that they would never do anything with the information. I told R about it when we worked together on Saturday after L left and for some reason, instantly regretted it. Today, I received a phone call from H in the middle of the day, but completely ignored it because I have stopped answering her weak attempts to catch up with me on the phone. It is also way too painful for me to have to deal with. She called again, which was unusual. Then, L called me too and I ignored that as well, concerned about what could be happening. My first thought was that they were asking me to hang out, but I was not in the mood and I was confused why H would come home on a Monday like this. I texted H, "what's going on" and received another phone call almost immediately. I answered to a crying H repeating "how could you?" over and over. "How could you tell R?". An extreme wave of emotions came over me and my mind raced about how H will never like me or trust me after this, and neither will L. They will never look at me the same way ever again after my dumb drunk decision had come to light. I knew that R's conscience was too pure to be able to get through an entire closing shift with only L without saying something. It was a lot for me to lay on him, I admit that. H kept telling me about how her life is ruined and crying and I suck and I will never understand why and it's a really big thing to have to tell people and they just really weren't ready at all. I just wanted to tell her how her life is not ruined and at least the person who she loves loves her back and is here on this earth even though three hours away, still here. I say this because H also was calling our good friend T, who I described earlier. T just lost her boyfriend to suicide and is obviously still grieving but now she has to hear about and H and L's lives are completely ruined, which is completely ironic because it doesn't compare to what T has been going through. After the phone call with H ended, I was so upset but also numb as well. I began typing up a paragraph explanation that I was going to text to her (no I did not mention that I am literally in love with her) but then L was calling me off the hook. L and I spoke for a combined 2.5 hours today on the phone through multiple calls. I do admire her for talking this out with me although I understand both of them are extremely hurt and although L called me psycho 10 times and told me there is something wrong with me and my hints always made her uncomfortable and this affects her life so much and why did I have to tell people and then she said that I broke her trust and showed my true colors. I explained and explained and cried to each one of them but I did it without mentioning my feelings. Toward the end of our last phone call, L mentioned that she thought that I could have feelings for H, which I also dropped really subtle hints to her about and sometimes it was just hard to hide my crippling jealousy. I visibly blushed (if only she could've seen me) but quickly denied it. She believed my denial but I wish I could tell both of them that I completely understand their motives behind not telling me or anyone or saying it out loud and I never had malicious intent ever and I love them both and I've been in love with H for almost a year now and it's killing me so badly and now any sliver of a possible chance I had with her has been completely destroyed and I just have no idea what to do. Please someone help... I have saved images in my snapchat my eyes only from months and months and months telling everything and locked with a long password and all I want to do is tell everyone everything but it actually would ruin my life because the person I love so much does not even love me back.