I (f23) have been friends with Bella (f22, fake name) since middle school. Bella was kind of wild in highschool (partying, doing drugs, etc) while I was far more tame. In the last year, Bella and I have worked together at a shop and I'm really impressed with how she's improved her life. She ditched her toxic boyfriend and has been clean for over a year. Bella and I decided to move in together and we finally found the perfect place. We jumped on it and were approved, but when it came time to pay the deposit, Bella couldn't pay her half. I was patient and figured she just needed to wait til pay day in two days, but come to find out that she was actually borrowing money from her parents to pay the deposit. On top of that, I met up with her and she told me that she was talking to her ex again. This is when I couldn't take it anymore and told her that I don't feel like we should be roommates. For context, bella's ex was physically abusive, and i wouldn't feel safe with him being in my home.

I know this hurt Bella to hear and we talked about it, she said she needed space and i told her I understood. All of this seemed fine, but when i went to work the next day, Bella and everyone else was treating me coldly. I was confused and when someone finally talked to me, our mutual co-worker told me that Bella felt as if I never wanted to move in with her. I was so confused and left work in tears after Bella sent me a weird, cryptic text making fun of me for asking about her. As I was leaving our other co-workers made fun of me for crying, saying "I can't handle my shit."

I'm so perplexed, everything seemed fine until I got to work yesterday. know what I said probably hurt, but our initial conversation was so respectful; I feel like i have no idea what happened. Ive also never known our co-workers to act like this. AITAH for backing out on our lease?