Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. I (24F) feel like the worst person ever right now.

So I’ve been with my boyfriend “Chris” (26M) for almost three years. Things have always been good — he’s supportive, kind, patient — just a genuinely good guy. He’s been there for me through a lot, especially when I started nursing school.

But nursing school is… it’s brutal. I’m exhausted all the time. I basically live at the hospital or buried in textbooks. I hardly have time to shower, let alone date nights or anything fun. Chris has been super patient, but lately he’s been getting frustrated because I’m never around, and when I am around, I’m like half-dead.

This semester, I got paired up with a guy in my program, “Liam” (25M), for clinicals and a bunch of projects. And… I don’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t like I meant for anything to happen. It just got easy with him — we study together late at night, we vent about school and professors, we just… get each other.

And the more time we spent together, the more the lines started to blur. Like, we’d be studying and suddenly realize we’re laughing about dumb stuff for an hour. Or he’d just look at me a certain way and it would hit me how easy it would be to just… lean in.

I swear nothing physical ever happened. But there was one night after a brutal clinical where we were sitting in his car, just decompressing, and I swear to God we almost kissed. Like, he leaned in a little, I leaned in without thinking, and then I snapped out of it and practically bolted.

After that, I felt so disgusting. I didn’t tell Chris about it. I just told him I was stressed and needed a little space, which… wasn’t a total lie? But also wasn’t the whole truth.

Now Chris is convinced I’m hiding something. He keeps blowing up my phone saying I’ve changed, that he “knows” there’s someone else. I keep saying no, because TECHNICALLY there isn’t — but emotionally? I don’t even know anymore.

Some friends are saying I didn’t do anything wrong because nursing school is intense and Liam is just someone I bonded with. Others are saying emotional cheating is still cheating and I’m basically leading both guys on.

I don’t know. I feel awful. I don’t want to hurt Chris. I don’t even know if I want to be with Liam. I’m just tired and confused and I feel like I’m the bad guy no matter what.

AITA?