Please help. I’m beating myself up over choosing the wrong guy and I can’t stop.

So basically some months ago, I was approached by and started talking to two dudes at nearly the identical time. Let’s call them Liam and Jack.

Jack started talking to me first and expressed his romantic interest. He is the furthest thing from my type and anything I like, but I was very awkward and, having never been approached before romantically, I caved and thought “oh well, I guess this is the best I’ll ever get so I might as well settle”. Extremely stupid way of thinking, but just to clarify, we are all in high school.

I met Liam exactly one day after I started talking to Jack. Liam approached me IRL (I was only texting Jack so far) and he seemed sweet and all, but I thought he was only being friendly and didn’t take his words too seriously. Fast forward a few days and I’m talking to both of them, and I start to realize Liam was romantically interested in me as well.

Now honestly I made a pros and cons list and everything, and Liam was objectively better in nearly every facet, but I barely knew anything about Jack and believed the stories he told me even though I later found them out to be completely false. I thought that since Jack approached first, even though I preferred Liam, I just \\\*had\\\* to pick Jack. Again, incredibly stupid line of thinking.

Jack rushed everything and asked me out and I panicked and thought I just had to say yes. I felt like he would get very angry or react badly if I rejected him, and even though I didn’t really like him, I still didn’t find that to be a good enough reason to reject him.

So I panicked and sent an embarrassing streak of messages to Liam about how this isn’t working out, I’m not ready to date and such. A few days pass and Jack finds out about me talking to Liam (prior to me and Jack officially dating) and asks me to block Liam so I do it.

Now fast forward some weeks later, I find out pretty much all of Jack’s life story was fabricated and a lie and he turns out to be a horrible and abusive person. I leave the relationship on awful terms and never speak to him again.

I’ve been beating myself up for being stupid and choosing Jack over Liam for months now and I’m genuinely losing sleep over it. I put myself into a horrible situation with Jack as he abused me and I feel like it’s all my own fault. I also feel so bad for ghosting Liam with little to no explanation and seemingly just popping out with another guy all of a sudden.

I really want to reach out and apologize to Liam because I see him around all the time and every time I do, I feel incredibly and overwhelmingly guilty, but I’m not too sure how to go about that. Please give me any kind of advice.