How should I handle this?

Hey, thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this, I’ve always been the guy to keep these things inside and deal with them myself but this is driving me crazy so I’m hoping some outside advice might help. I’ll try and write out the entire timeline of this relationship as clean and to the point as possible.

I (20m) am in a weird situation with this girl (19f). So from the very start, growing up she was friends with my best friend’s sister so I’ve known her for a long time. about 3 years ago I hit her up to come over and we slept together. up until December of 2021, she was just like a booty call to me. Its not that I didn’t like her, but I just straight up did not want to date anyone, and honestly thought I would never fall in love. In february of this year (2022) I went for a trip across the country for 2 months. When I got back me and my best friend started hanging out again and while I was gone this girl became good friends with my best friends girlfriend, and the two girls moved in together. All summer the four of us would hang out, and I was scared to commit to a relationship so I treated her like a friend. I had thought that I wanted to start something with her so we got close for a week and slept together and after that I got scared of commitment again and pushed her away. I didn’t think she cared and that she thought of me as a hook up too.

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After this I was really focused on my sport so I wasnt around much. At the start of August I started to realize I Love this girl. So my plan was to hang out with her and she would just pick up on this and want to start an actual relationship. After trying this for 2 months I got frustrated because she wasnt giving me any energy back. So I talked to her roommate (my friends ex) about the situation and found out that she has been in love with me for the last 2 years and she has issues communicating her feelings so she just kept quiet about it. All summer when I was pushing her away she was crying herself to sleep at night and losing her mind because she loved me and I was treating her like a friend and then pouring gas on the fire we slept together and then I pushed her away after that. I had no idea she felt like this in the moment but after learning this I have felt so horrible for putting her through months of feeling like that.

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At this point I haven’t told her I love her yet. The week after learning how she felt for the past few years they threw a thanksgiving dinner with their co workers and friends so I came. At the end of the night there was 5 of us left and we decided to go out to a club, I was the DD. So if you dont know already the club sucks when your sober. Anyways, I got a bad phone call that I went outside to take for 20 minutes. When I hung up i was mad but then decided, hey im here with the girl I love, im gonna go dance with her for the next hour before the club closes. So I walk downstairs and see her making out with a random guy. I walked out to my truck, got in and screamed as loud as I could for 20 minutes and started crying (ive never cried since I was a little kid). I start to calm down and a few minutes later her roommate comes out and gets in my truck and says they are going to stay in the city. Now my mind assumed they where going home with those guys so I got out of my truck, yelled “FU\*K” and kept walking. Her roommate ran after me and told me that she feels bad but I have no right to be mad because of how I treated her in the past and still haven’t told her how I feel. So after we talk I drive home and they stay in the city, however, they just went to her sister’s house, not with those guys. I didn’t sleep all night, couldn’t eat, and didnt want to do anything, I was restless. Never felt like this before.

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In the morning I texted her basically cussing her out saying I didnt drive them around and get nice clothes and stuff for that night just to see her making out with some random dude. I never got a response. That afternoon her roommate told me to talk with her and tell her how I feel asap. SO the next night after she got off work she agreed to talk, i picked her up and we drove to this hill that looks over the town. I told her that I love her, and I want to go through life with her, help her become a better person and her help me become a better person. TO go through good and bad times together. and I also apologized for how I treated her in the past. After telling her this (btw this was wierd for me because ive never opened up to anyone, ever) she said she wants to be friends because she is lost right now and cant make herself happy, yet alone another person (I have known she’s been depressed for a while). I respect this and I go to drop her off, she asks to hug me and she goes inside. I sit for a minute and felt like it was over forever so I took a hail mary and ran inside and went to kiss her and she said no and that she didn’t want to do this to me. So at this point, I thought I screwed up so bad and I waited to long and lost her forever.

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It was a long next few days, I couldnt sleep, eat or do anything, i felt sick, etc,etc. And then a few days later i texted her basically saying that i hope evrything is good and that I know shes not stoked with me right now but ill be gone all week so if you wanted to hand out this weekend we could do something fun.

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She then responds with She hasnt felt real the past few days and she doesnt know how to feel so many feelings at once and that if she gets off work at a decent time we could hang out.

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She end up working late and we didnt hang out, however, I hung out with her roommate, who at this point ive been becoming really good friends with, and we went for a walk. We talked about life and stuff for a long time and she told me that I should be there for her as a friend and tell her Ill wait as long as she needs to figure her feeling out.

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Now one detail i forgot to include earlier is she works 2 serving jobs and does double shifts most days and hates the work and is causing her to be depressed.

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So I text her saying that I want her to know Ill wait as long as she needs and that I believe feelings like we both have had come once in a lifetime and I promised her that ill do all I can to not screw that up.

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She doesn’t respond to that text, and I am gone all week out of town. However the next day I respond to her snap story and we start snapping back and forth and the tension dissipates as I make the conversations friendly and fun, however, she still takes hours to respond when I know shes on her phone several times an hour.

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Ive talked to her roommate several times and she truly believes that we will work out and she will come around.

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Now I get back from being gone on friday and the 3 of us (her and her roomate) hang out on Monday. I went over and got them both some flowers and some crystals (theyre big into crystals) and when I get there I give them to the roomate and shes super happy and goes to get this girl as shes in her bedroom. She doesnt come out for like 40 minutes. Come to find out this girl was having a panick attack about life (her job, extra stress that Ive put on her, etc) SO the roomate calms her down and they talk about alot of things that they have been holding back from eachother with their relationship, and she fels that shes hurting eeveryone around heer and they had a decent convo about me at some point is what I was told by the roomate. So when the roomate comes out she says that she thinks im in the good books and that Shes just really hesitant to trust me because of how I treated her in the past. about 30 minutes later this girl comes out of her room and is very sad and slowly I cheer her up and we all have a great night, we go for a drive, sing, have fun. ive never seen her this happy in a few months. and then later in the night we are wathing a movie and we are cuddled together and im stroking her hand and when I stopped she stroked my hand. and around 3 am They where tired so before I left she gave me a really tight hug and stroked my back with her fingers and said ‘thanks for everything’ so I go home thinking everything’s going really good. The next night we hang out and shes a bit more cold then the previous night. We still find eye contact but shes is very subtly ignoring me with her body language and convo. Then at the end of the night before I leave I give her a hug and she strokes my back again. So this makes me feel like things are still going good and the previous night wasn’t a fluke because Ive found people who like eachother like to twirl their finger on the other person, so if shes doing this it must mean something.

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And now we are on to today. She has been taking hours to reply on snap when her score is going up every few minutes ( I hate being this guy). We are suposed to go on a trip tomorrow to a hotspring and its currently 11 pm and I havent heard confirmation from her. I asked her roomate earlier today about the whole situation of our relationship and she said that she is going through a really hard time and the best thing I could do is to give her some space and just act like her friend. Now this is really throwing me for a loop because on Monday when we hung out it went so good. I have really been trying to hang out with her every day because next week I start working out of town for 2 weeks on 1 week off, so I want to see her as much as possible but she really doesnt want to make time for me. after work she is always just to tired. Which I understand, but im concerned because If you love a person enough youll want to see them and make time. Ive actually considered backing out of this job because I dont want to be out of town for so long and risk growing further apart and losing her forever. Everyone who knows the situation thinks I should just give it time and to give her some space. But that so effing hard because if im going to be gone alot I want to spend all the time with her that I can and secondly Im scared to give her space because what if she decides she doesn’t love me anymore.

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She is going through a really hard time in every aspect of life and I want nothing but for her to be happy at the end of the day. If that means I can’t hold her in my arms again, I’d sooner her be happy. But I just love her so much and it’s been almost 3 weeks since we went to that club and there hasn’t been 15 minutes in those 3 weeks where I haven’t stopped thinking about her. This whole situation has made me start working really hard on my business so I can provide a life for her where she doesn’t have to work, I’ve been working really hard in the gym to get stronger to protect her, I’m reading lots, doing yoga, etc, I’m working as hard as I can in every waking hour and she has motivated me to work this hard. I’ve always been healthy person with good habits, but using her as motivation has kicked me into hyperdrive.

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Anyways I don’t have a particular question. I just really wanted to get this out there because for weeks I’ve had a knot in my stomach that won’t go away and a constant screaming in my head that only gets quiet when I’m with her and then comes back as soon as she acts cold. Im just so regretful of how I treated her and that I took so long to feel this way. I cant help but thinking how good this summer would have been if I wasn’t so weak and scared to commit a few months ago. I cant help but think what if I’ve lost her forever, you know? This Monday and the physical contact we had gave me alot of hope, but since then shes been not responding, so I dont know what to do. Ill probably have more things to add to this but I think that covers it for now. I sincerely appreciate any input as I am young and dumb, dont have any dating experience as I held off on all those meaningless highschool relationships, waiting for something that I could see lasting forever. I can see myself being with this girl forever… Ive had no sex drive for a month. I dont even notice other girls anymore. I am like deep down the rabbit hole and I am worried that what if this doesn’t work out… I know im strong and ill get through anything, but I cant see my life going any other way then being with this girl, and Im just scared and dont know what the best thing to do to give me the highest probability of getting her back. Her roomate told me she’s just hesitant to trust me. Her roommate has been telling her that ive truly changed but I dont think she fully believes it, so what’s the best thing to do to prove that I wont ever hurt her again?

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The last thing ill add, because I find it really cool, is for years ive never wanted to die but Ive always been okay with thee idea of like getting in a plane crash and it all being over. Now I want to be alive so bad, because just the thought of leaving this earth without ever truly being with this girl makes my soul shake. Just wanted to share that, because I think its a truly powerful feeling that 3 months ago I would say your were crazy for.

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Thanks again!