Complex Situation: friends, cheats, romance

Ok, this is going to be a complicated and very long-winded post. So I don't blame any of you for not reading.


To make things easy to understand, I'm going to say there's five people involved here. These names aren't real, but let's call them Sarah, Liam, Rachel, Louise and myself. To give you background, we all lived together last year (our second year of uni). Sarah and Liam are a couple, Lousie is in a relationship but that isn't important and Rachel and myself are single.


Since third year, we've all gone our separate ways in terms of our living situation but we keep in touch and still go on nights out. Our main reason for not sticking together was Sarah and Liam's relationship was a nightmare to live with. At first, she seemed to be very controlling and high maintenance, but as time went on we realised he was just as bad and very manipulative to her. She doesn't have many friends here and he really took advantage of that because she needed him. I'll admit - Rachel, Lousie and myself didn't always see eye to eye with Sarah, but we all agreed the way he was treating her was bad. Behind her back, you'd never know they went out. He talked like he hated her and actively encouraged us to not invite her to nights out. But when he was alone with her, it was obviously a whole different story – telling her he loves her etc... Basically, he seemed like he was just using her for sex.


Since coming back from the summer, I realised I was kinda interested in Rachel. At least enough to make a move and just see how things go. And the last few times I was with her it definitely seemed like I was in with a shot. But I wanted to pick my moment. Our next night out was for her 21^st and I wanted to wait til maybe the time after so there would be less people with us.


However on Rachel's 21^st I found out Liam had cheated on Sarah during our last night out. He even told Sarah this and she was still willing to stay with him. I was there that night, I didn't see it but I was racking my brains trying to figure out who it could be. I figured it was some some random girl. Then he admitted to Louise, he'd pulled Rachel. According to him, they done more than that, according to her they didn't. I do know that both Liam and myself crashed at Rachel's place that night, but I passed out fairly quickly. So who knows what really happened.


I've not spoken to Rachel since, I've had one awkward encounter with Liam where I just pretended nothing was wrong. It's not as if I'm heartbroken or anything, that would be a total exaggeration. But it's pretty gutting when you're feeling pretty confident about making a move with a girl and it turns out she'd been getting with your “friend” who's in a relationship. I know it sounds cliched, but she's genuinely the last person you've ever expect to do this. She's the one who's always had the most sympathy for Sarah and has looked out for her the most.


And this isn't even all about me. I could have made a move and Rachel wasn't interested for all I know. There's Sarah to think about. She still doesn't know it was Rachel. And why would Liam even tell Lousie this? Surely he would know it would then get out eventually? It's like he just wants to manipulate everyone and bring us all down around him. Does he just like creating drama to feel important? Both me and Louise are furious that they've been so stupid. We don't know what to do. It's messed up on so many levels.


I can say life's too short, it was a drunken mistake and let's move on. But life's also too short to be around people you don't want to and I hate what he's become. He's become the worst type of person, the lowest of the low is my eyes. I've never been the best friend to Sarah, I'd even say I was a bad friend, but I've NEVER treated her the way he has. The way they have. What do we do now? Just all go out together like happy families as if it never happened? And why should I put up with this drama? I've got a great set of home friends, separate from my uni friends. Should I just cut myself off from all this nonsense, that I'm absolutely sick of? Or do I try and move past it? I can't just suddenly forget all the things I liked about Rachel to begin with.


It's messed up. Really messed up.