Little experience on friendship breakup

Hello everyone, this is my first time posting on reddit and I wanted to share what happened with me. You know how they say friendships dont last in the first year of college? Well this story is something of that sort i guess. In my first year I had a group of 2 friends which branched out into 8. I was close to the friends I made in the beginning especially Rhea, Grace and Stella. Rhea was the leader of the group and everyone sort of followed her. Rhea and Stella always had disagreements and we always had to pick sides which I hated but back then I would pick Rhea's side even though she was wrong. Later on when Rhea and I got into a fight (she treated me horribly, which led to others not talking to me too) I realised this was how Stella felt and we had a conversation and decided to stop talking to the group. This made Stella and I closer than ever, I apologised for not standing up for her and for being an asshole. Stella and I were best friends and we always spent time together in college especially since we were cut off from the group and we didn't really have any other friends. In the 3rd year of college Stella and I became close to Andy and Janet and we all pretty much became a tight knit group. We all spent such wonderful time together. Andy, Janet and I bonded over music which made Stella visibly jealous. Around this time my boyfriend and I were going through a rough patch so Stella was my comfort. She knew the things I went through especially from my childhood and stuff. I was dealing with depression and was taking medicines around this time which made me apathetic towards everything. After our exams Stella noticed that I was avoiding my boyfriend and she texted him (I didnt know of this) and they had a long conversation. My boyfriend then accused me of having a crush on Andy which came out of nowhere and when I asked him why he accused me of this he said it wasn't just him who noticed me "flirting" with him but it was also my friends. So I demanded to know who this friend was and he told me it was Stella who told him. I was extremely angry and disappointed because 1. this came out of nowhere 2. Stella didnt really talk to me about this 3. My boyfriend was going to break up with me over this if I hadn't talked it out later on.

I confronted Stella and she told me that she and Andy felt that I was flirting with Andy, making dirty jokes and stuff so they decided to get on a discord call with my boyfriend behind my back and told it to him. They also told him to keep this is as secret between themselves and that they would be there for both of us if we decided to break up. I was furious because I didn't understand why they chose to talk to my boyfriend first than me especially since this was a misunderstanding. I told Andy that if I made him uncomfortable I was sorry and that I'd be more mindful next time. Andy told me that this has happened to him with other girls too (where he assumes that they have a crush on him when they get close to him and then when he confronts they deny it) which just confused me further. Anyways I vented about this to Janet who was surprised because to her it didn't look like I was flirting but rather being friendly. And that was my personality among my close friends.

After this incident my friendship with Stella withered away. I did try to mend it so many times but she seemed like she didn't know how to go back to how we were before (in her words) so I had to let it go. Once I went through her journal (ik its wrong of me to do that and I am really sorry about it). It was left on my desk and I was a little confused since she didnt sit in my desk, although this doesnt justify my action I opened it for a second and I couldn't believe the words that were written in it. Stella had kept a Polaroid of just the two of us and wrote that she was in love with me, she wanted to kiss me (it was pretty descriptive), that she wanted to get back together with me and I was like?????? I immediately closed the diary and put it back because I didn't know what to take of it. Mind you she was already in a relationship with her boyfriend way before we even met.

After that Andy and Stella became close friends and we had to let them go. Many times people asked me if they were dating and obviously I didn't know what was happening so I would just brush it off. I still miss my friendship with Stella; I don't have a lot of girlfriends and she was the closest one that I had to a healthy friendship for a long time. I'm close with Janet and we still keep in touch but now I'm scared of getting hurt so I usually keep to myself. Most days I try not to let the loneliness get to me but I find myself thinking whether I was the problem or not. So yeah, thats my story. Lemme know what you guys think of it. Thank you for reading this!