Apologies because this is going to be a bit of a long one

I (19NB) have two best friends that I've stuck with since the beginning of my time in university, W (19M) and P (19NB). This story mostly revolves around W.

We'd always planned to move in together once our time in student accommodation came to an end and we moved on to student housing. Originally, we'd had a 5 bed house sorted in November but it had fell through after the others who had joined us had a conflict between each other and split off.

Cut to about December time and W tells us that his flatmates wanted to move in with the rest of his building in a 12 bedroom house and they needed 3 more people. W pushed for us to join this house so that we could be together but both me and P were finding issues with this. For one, the three of us had never seen the 12 bedroom house. We had asked for a viewing as we were in lectures at the time that the others had gone to see the house and were ignored every single time we'd asked. Myself and P also didn't know anyone in that house so the thought of living in a 12 bedroom house where you only know 2 people in it was not exactly appealing to us. Not to mention that there are only 3 bathrooms which 4 people each will need to share and only one kitchen. You can probably see why myself and P did not particularly want to do it. We had not signed the initial intake form that had been sent to us by the landlord but W had to "cover himself legally". To add onto this, someone in that house had spread really nasty rumours about P which we knew definitely weren't true and so P was not comfortable going into a house where they were essentially hated.

Cut to about January/February time and W is getting frustrated at the 12 bed and his flatmates and the lack of communication around anything. From there, we decided that we would look to move in together as a 3 instead. After a while (around March), we decided on a property and were set to sign the contract with the landlord face to face.

This is where the problems started. When we were sent the contract, the landlord added a caveat to the email stating that there would be an £1800 cap on electricity and that we could discuss that further when we met up. This initially made the 3 of us anxious as with the state of the UK (and the world) we worried about how this would fare for us. When we'd come face to face with the landlord, myself and P asked him about the electricity and he'd cleared that up really well (there was a smart meter in the house and the landlord uses a company called Octopus Energy who are known to have low energy costs).

Going into this contract signing, myself and P sort of knew that W was apprehensive in signing this contract because of the energy situation. While the 3 of us had walked there, we unanimously decided on a code word of sorts that any of us would say if we felt that we didn't want to go through with the contract signing. During the meeting, W seemed very disengaged with everything going on and barely made eye contact with anyone in that room. As the contract was then passed around for signing, myself and P both looked around at everyone there just to gauge how the others were feeling. As I am lead tenant, I signed first. I had then tried to hand it to W for him to go next to which he pointed at P and wanted them to sign next. After P had signed, we looked to W assuming he'd sign. He didn't.

W gave an excuse that he had to have his dad look over the contract and refused to sign it which shocked all of us in the room (more because of the fact that he'd gotten as far as letting us two sign before saying anything as we already sort of predicted he wouldn't sign). The landlord was happy to give him time as he didn't want him signing something he wasn't happy with. Once we got out of the house, myself and P turned to W and asked why he'd done that and his only response was "I don't trust the landlord as far as I could throw him". This also resulted in him walking away from us and high tailing it on his own for a solid 10 minutes.

Insert the most drawn out deadlock of all time. For some added context, the UK student house market is notoriously horrible with most houses being snapped up by November/December so the fact that we'd even gotten a house now is truly lucky. The house is also a 4 bed property that allows for groups of 4 or 3 people meaning that myself and P can't move in without W.

In the coming days and weeks afterwards, we would try and occasionally bring up the house and ask W if he'd had any thoughts on it. We weren't trying to pressure him at all but as it's so late in the game we just wanted a straight answer. However, that is not what we got. Every single time we even brought it up in passing he'd intentionally ignore us or repeat "i don't trust him" and then change the subject immediately. It got to a point where P and I were becoming extremely frustrated and just wanted him to give an answer. It just kept becoming a wall of "I don't trust him" or "I need to talk to X, Y and Z" and we were being messed about. Eventually, myself and P told him on Thursday that we wanted an actual answer the next day because we were honestly sick of this weird back and forth

So this brings us to yesterday's events. We had our usual hang out which led us to a pub where, admittedly, me and P got drunk. W, however, was sober. Again, we brought up the house and again it was "I don't trust the man" (footnote: the reason why has changed at least 3 times, first it was the electricity, then it was the fact that he didn't trust him as a person, and then it was the lack of eye contact and the fact that he hadn't answered W's questions during the contract signing.... W didn't ask any). After discussing it in the toilets together, P and I decided to ask him once again while we were on the way back to our accommodation. This time, W ignored P, making them have to call W's name at least 5 times before he responded. From there, the question was asked again and was danced around again. Eventually, he turned to P and said "I'll talk to my flat and get back to you, how about that?" in an annoyed tone. P pushed again for an answer which lead W to then say "alright, I'll move into the 12 bed then". At which point, he stormed away.

The both of us were in complete shock at W and what he had just done. It felt like a complete betrayal that he'd just leave us to dry like that out of nowhere in a way that made it seem like he had planned to do that all along. We got back to the accommodation and P asked W if he was genuinely being serious about it to which he gave a multitude of excuses like "the 12 bed is cheaper" (it's not, the 12 bed is around £140 a week compared to the other house being around £130), "my parents know where I am" (the 12 bed is a 2 minute walk from the other house) and my personal favourite "the only reason I took out my deposit from the 12 bed was because I wanted options" (which is another footnote by the way: he had put down at least some of the deposit for the 12 bedroom house and had not told us this until around about 2 weeks ago).

Cue a massive argument outside the accommodation where he kept saying that he needed to think of himself and that we were saying we wanted him to put us both before him. He also kept saying that we had options to move back into accommodation (that costs around £190 a week and is the absolute last resort for both of us) or to go into the 12 bed which, because of the reasons stated earlier, we also didn't want to do. This argument ended with the friendship essentially ending and us parting ways.

I genuinely don't know how to feel about any of this. Unless we can find a 3rd person, myself and P are effectively homeless until we can sort something out quickly. I just feel so conflicted right now. I've known W for years and this feels like a massive stab in the back to me. Friends don't do this to each other. I feel horrible for being upset and angry at W but I don't know how else to feel. This is all just a massive mess and I don't know what to do or how to get out of it

So reddit, please help me. AITA?