My friend (17) was sleeping with our co worker (27) and lying about it to me

Hello. I don’t post on Reddit much, but I just need to get this off my chest. This sounds cut and dry but it doesn’t feel like it. This is really long, so thank you to those who read it all.

This all started when I started working at my new job. Both me and my friend, who I’ll call C, are 17. A month or so into working, our older co worker, who I’ll just call N, approached me while I was waiting for my ride home. He offered me a ride, to which we then exchanged phone numbers. We got each other’s discords and started talking from there.

We chatted, and we were talking for multiple hours a day. He started making flirtatious comments toward me, and it escalated from there. He would tell me I was smart and pretty, and would “joke” about dating me, and it went from flirtatious to overtly sexual. We would hang out in the break room, where he stood close to me, and we’d tease each other in the halls. These comments didn’t stop at just texts, he’d make comments toward me in person as well. It felt good, admittedly.

I ended up telling C and my other friend. It became a running joke that he was my groomer, but it was basically the reality at that point. We treated it as a joke because I guess they knew I wasn’t stupid enough to pursue it beyond comments. C always made comments about her attraction to N, because he’s not a bad looking guy. Realizing what was going on between N and I, she took the opportunity to get his information from my phone and text him from there.

Within 2 weeks, the flirtatious comments N directed towards me stopped, and I suspected something was up. C was transparent about this, showing me their texts. At the time, she was dating her then boyfriend and about a week in during those 2 weeks, they broke up. Over the course of that time their texts were aggressively sexual in ways N and I’s weren’t and I felt and still feel hypocritical, but it didn’t feel right at all.

We shared a life360 circle together, and I get a notification that she’s out at night walking. I bring this up to her later and she confesses they met up. At this point I was appalled. Nothing N and I had done ever went this far and it was crossing into very dangerous territory.

I tried to not to intervene because I trusted her but she tells me they made out and that’s when I decided that I was going to try to convince her to stop. For the next month, I spent so much emotional energy trying to tell her to, at the very least, stop meeting up with him. Because she kept on. She kept going out at night and seeing him, making out, groping each other, etc. I know this because she told me, flat out.

I’d like to mention at this point, I have an extensive history with sexual abuse and grooming. It’s all I’ve known, from a very young age. The first time I was assaulted, I was 4. It continued my entire childhood and into my early teens, on top of emotional abuse and neglect from my family. Without getting into too many details, I’ve been through things that had even my therapist disturbed by. This isn’t a flex, and I don’t want to come across like it’s a badge of honor. I feel it’s crucial to understanding why I reacted the way I did. I told C about these things multiple times.

Hours long phone calls and texting sessions, up to 6 hours, practically just begging her to, at the very least, stop reciprocating the sexual conversations and meeting up with him. I told her I was there for her, that I loved her, and that me and our other friend would be there for her once she cut him off. She said she would, but it just kept going. I was so tired of acting like everything was normal, like she wasn’t continuously going after him despite everything I was telling her.

She would literally ask me how to uninvolve herself, but when I gave her genuine advice, she never seemed to actually take it. I grew increasingly frustrated and burnt out, but I continued trying to be there to support her. But at some point I just felt like I was enabling her. Whenever I expressed this frustration, trying to tell her enough was enough and that someone was going to get hurt, she would get defensive every time

At one point, they even drove together in his car, and got pulled over because he was missing a taillight. They were lucky the police didn’t question why a teenage girl was with a grown man late at night. I grew intensely frustrated at her, and she responded by telling me it wasn’t my business, that she was just “playing with him and his feelings,” that she needed a sense of control over her life, that me trying to tell her how to end things was me “breaking boundaries” which just felt like weaponized therapy talk.

I was exhausted, and resentful. I was tired of her coming to me for advice only to get mad when I wouldn’t give her the answer she wanted. She somehow convinced my other friend that this was what was best for her and her peace of mind, always going back to how she needed this because it gave her control despite the countless times I told her she had no control. In grooming situations, you don’t have control. It’s just cognitive dissonance mixed with delusion, coming from someone who went through the same thing.

She called me selfish multiple times, told me I didn’t understand what it was like to be in her shoes, that I was involving myself in a situation that didn’t involve me anymore, and ultimately when she told me she told him it was best they didn’t speak together the way they were, that it was my fault she lost control because I kept pushing it. It didn’t help that my other friend (whom I love, and they have since apologized sincerely) also went against me.

I felt completely insane, and I’ve dealt with constant emotional invalidation, so hearing that from my two best friends made me feel physically ill. I felt genuinely suicidal at the time, and only when I started sobbing through voice messages about how scared I was for her the entire time, did she listen.

She somehow was surprised I thought she was in physical danger, which.. She was?? I’m still confused about that to this day. I feel like it has to do with how she claims ignorance a lot despite her actions feeling extremely targeted. But anyway, I was a wreck after that. She said sorry, but at that point I was questioning so much I felt like me crying was somehow guilt tripping her and am still questioning it.

We end up “making up,” and it feels normal again. For the next almost two months, all three of us hang out like normal. Like everything is okay. Because I thought it was.

During a hang out, before we go into the mall, she mentions that N sent her a text. I’m caught off guard by this, as I thought they stopped talking. Both me and my friend are confused, asking why he’s still texting her. She tries brushing it off, saying it “serves her no benefit to block him” which. Makes no sense. And for the rest of the day I’m playing that on repeat in my head.

During the time before, I’d gone to the adults in my life who I knew would listen—my manager and my other co worker. They told me that she came on N’s break time, and went in through the backdoor that led to where the break room is. I shrugged this off at the time, totally convinced she wasn’t still seeing him. But now, I went back to that and started questioning everything up until that point.

After I got home from our mall hangout, I text her that I’m not comfortable hanging out with her when she has him added and lets him text her. She gets extremely defensive right off the bat, essentially telling me I’m being irrational and again, that’s it’s really none of my business, that she’s moving at her own pace and dealing with it in her own way.

I wasn’t mean about it either, I told her it made me wildly uncomfortable and that I just didn’t want to hang out with her while she had him added. Instead of respecting that, she just got mad at me and then told me “please for the love of god realize what happened to you wasn’t the worst thing in the world and that you could be in my shoes.”

I don’t know. I guess at that point I was so sick and done with it all that I just blocked her and cried. I cried for hours, like hysterically sobbed. She was texting my other friend and said she just “worded it horribly” which is what she says every time she hurts me. From the small things to the big things, she always says she “just worded it bad.”

The next day we have work together, and I just ignore her. It’s all really messy during this. She cries in the bathroom and my manager goes to check on her, and she confesses that her and N were having sex. I don’t like using that, because I realize a minor cannot consent to an adult under any circumstance, and it is therefore rape. I just don’t know how Reddit feels about the terminology, I’m not familiar with this platform.

Later that night, I was concerned for her well being. She left the Life360 circle, so I was scared she’d do something to herself. So I texted her I was considering calling the non-emergency line to do a welfare check on her, because I didn’t want to risk it. We get to texting, and she confesses everything to me.

Only about a week with little to no contact with him, she texts him that she wants to have sex. I’m quoting most of this from her, and that is quoted. For the next almost 2 months, they are meeting up regularly and “hooking up.” I didn’t know how to process this all. For the next couple of hours, I text her. I tell her that I’m there for her, and tell her I’m sorry this was going on. Before I texted her that, I was trying to beat it into her head that this was insane. It took a while for her to stop saying “who are you to tell me who I can and can’t talk to, it’s not your place, don’t speak for me,” etc. The next day, I compile a list of resources for her in a doc and send them to her, telling her I love her.

Everything has shifted. I felt totally selfish and awful, but I felt so betrayed. She told me one of the reasons she was doing it was because he’d buy things for her, which I understand to an extent. When I was 14, I sold myself online for money. For a long time. I got involved with some really awful people, and ended up in online exploitation, so I understand the money high of it. But I feel the reasons were different. I had no autonomy at the time, no support system, and no income.

With C, both me and my other friend gave her money consistently. We gave her money for gas, bought her snacks and drinks, and offered to cover costs for other things like clothes and other non essential items. Even when I didn’t really have the money, I always offered. N did the same thing, for the same exact items. We were already giving her money for these things.

After that, she invites us to her game. She’s apart of the performance. I still had very complicated feelings on this all, feelings I couldn’t name, but I still went. The game went horribly wrong, but that’s beside the point. On the car ride home, she starts talking about the things she did with N. So casually. In graphic detail. Not in a venting way, if that makes sense. Just telling us about how he was an eater, laughing about what they’d do together like it was couple stuff. I just felt sick to my stomach, and wanted to go home.

Over the past month, outside of this, it’s just been horrible. But this whole thing felt like the cherry on top of the shit pile. I have so many bitter feelings towards her. Awful feelings that I try to pretend aren’t there. I guess it’s all been adding up. Even outside this whole thing with N, I feel strongly she hasn’t been a good friend for multiple reasons. I’ve gone to the adults in my life, hell I even called a crisis line, but I don’t feel like I’m doing what I should or feeling the way I should. I feel very used. And I feel horrible because I feel selfish, like I’m making it about myself. Like I’m a bad person. I don’t know how to feel, I just know I feel really bad.

If you’ve read up until now, thank you. It’s really late, 4:30am by the time I’m posting this. Typing all this out has took it out of me again. If anyone has honest thoughts or opinions to share, please do. I would really appreciate feedback, and I’d be happy to answer questions. I just really need to talk to someone, as burdening my other friend with this has made me feel horrible also. I feel like I’m in a very bad dream sometimes. Thank you, again.