is this as bad as my friends have made it seem??

so i F-17 been friends with this girl F-20 for over a year now (since february 2025 ) she's 20 right now, i was 16 when i met her, we started to get close within the months and started taking over text romantically while we planned to meet in person, we live in the same state, just 20 minutes away. eventually, january 2026 rolled around when she turned 20 i have just turned 17, we had sex, all that.

we continued talking romantically despite her telling me we would only ever be friends.

ongoing i started to feel manipulated; especially when i just started taking shit that she'd give me and not reciprocate, because u was too scared of her leaving me.

sometime in march, she cut me off, claiming that she's always "had a problem" with our age gap, even though she was comfortable with driving me sometimes, drinking infront of me, relaying her sexual fantasies and etc.

it took me a while to get over her, and while i was busy asking multiple friends what they thought they all told me i was delusional and getting groomed to put it short, borderline statutory rape they'd say.

fast forward to june of 2026 she contacted me again wanting to reconnect, realizing she was a coward for leaving me without us talking through it like any normal person would.

we reconnected and have hung out since, she told me that she got more comfortable with our age gap after she coincidentally contacted me when her situationships were failing.
is this a sign to seek help? or realize she's more horrible than i like to realize.

since i was 12 and on the internet if something happened to my friend in a similar situation i would've jumped to comfort them and jumped to get them help and justice and tell them what they went through was horrible. but when it happens to me especially with someone i used to hold so close to me, i minimize it and force myself to believed it isn't that bad. because i feel like if i just made myself realize it was that bad i wouldn't still be in contact with her.

ps. ive since put boundaries in place for the sake of my current relationship with my girlfriend, but since she's overstepped multiple times. and i don't know what to do, i want to keep my friendship but i don't wanna hurt my girlfriend and she's been more than understanding of what's been going on.

thank you for taking time to read this post. it would mean a lot to get some advice.