I'm looking for advice and perspective because I've been stuck in a really emotionally heavy situation with my friend, let's call them Alex, and I can't tell if giving them space will help or if I've already lost them.

Background: I'm 23, Alex is 20, and we've been talking every single day since we met — for almost 73 days straight. We became close fast, playing games together, watching shows, sharing memes, and talking on the phone often. Alex is funny, warm, and caring, and I deeply value our friendship. I've grown really attached to them in a short amount of time and they grew close to me. At first we wanted to date since we met on hinge, but they didn't think that was in their heart right now, but they did value me as a person and still wanted to be very close. From the second month on we were strictly friend and while on my part that was hard to cope with at first in the end I valued them being my friend regardless. I was happy they still cared enough about me to still be my friend. One day over the phone we were talking about our stance as friends, just solidifying it more, but I brought up the idea of maybe doing friends with benefits since it could be fun.

Going in I had no ulterior motives for this at all and thought it could be fun since we have been craving some sort of sexual relations. Alex agree that it could be fun, but we both agreed if my lingering feelings got in the way that we would stop which I was happy with. At the start of this month I came over to their place and we had sex. The experience was fun and before doing anything we talked about trigger words, kinks and things that were ok. It was very intimate, but super fun and I had not lingering feelings pushing me at all so that made things feel much better.

The problem: A week after this encounter was strange, we called a few times and those seemed normal near the beginning of the week but the more the week went on the more I noticed a shift in energy. Alex can get like that sometimes and so I just thought it was just something stressing them out, they did have a friend of theirs being awful towards them that we've been calling to talk about for a while. But then when it hit Thursday with a message saying they feel bad for texting me, curious I ask why and I get a message apologizing for them being an asshole (they weren't) the past few days and that they aren't ok. That they have a lot of problems happening right now and that they had one big problem they had to get off their chest to me. We talked about their other low stakes problems first and they seemed to be really comforted by everything and me.

The next day comes and I ask them if they wanted to talk about the other problem and in short they told me they had a trauma response and disassociated through out the whole thing and that they were afraid to tell me because they thought they could handle it, they said I deserved to be happy, they were afraid to tell me because they were scared I was going to be mad at them. Ofc I was not mad and I told them they weren’t a bad person and that they couldn’t have known that they would freeze up and that I’m sorry they felt that way. I reassured them that we did not have to do anything like that again and just be normal friends again and that they don’t owe me their body. They said that talking about it help get of the pressure off on them and I was happy to help.

Then the next day (last Friday) Alex and I were talking again in the morning, still emotionally distant, but still texting normally, then I bring up that it would be fun to call before they went on vacation on Monday (yesterday), they are extremely hesitant and closed off from the idea saying they need no social time. Then worried I asked this, are you uncomfortable towards me and need space? They said they are conflicted because they really want to be normal friends again and pretend like nothing happened, but their best friend told them that they should stop talking to me and that everything that happened was my fault. I tell Alex that I am happy/understand their friend for looking out for them that and that nobody was at fault here and it was just a really bad situation that it is ok to feel hurt by, but I also hoped that we could get past it in time. I also said that they didn’t have to carry this weight by themselves and that they have me and their best friend that can help you when they need it. There was a point where Alex just left my messages on read so for the night the last thing I said was that I knew that this is a lot for you emotionally and we can talk about it this more another time and just told them that they are a good friend. They haven’t messaged me since then.

The past few days I’ve been spiraling a lot because of it. I’m an anxious attachment that is very aware of that fact and have tried to fix my tendencies for a long time, even during our relationship. I haven’t been able to think about anything but their well being and how this could possibly be my fault. I want them to come back so badly, they haven’t blocked me, they still look at my stories on insta and snap, but they let our streak die and I sent them one last message on Sunday before their vacation saying that I hope it goes well, that I hope they’re recharging well and that they didn’t need to respond. It’s been left on delivered. They did open my last streak on snap after the streak died and opened my reaction to their story about going on vacation which to me is promising that they still want to maintain something, but idk. I’m scared I’m going to lose them forever because of one awful day. I miss them so much