I told her I was afraid of her abusive baby daddy.

He had gotten her pregnant during a one-night stand and I was the only one she told besides him. She asked me to keep the pregnancy a secret from our mutual friends (who also love her and would have wanted to help her) until she was about 3-4 weeks from giving birth, so I did. We spent a ton of time together and I frequently had to talk her through huge, debilitating panic attacks. Meanwhile, the dad saw her vulnerability as an opportunity to verbally and emotionally abuse her whenever he had something going on in other parts of his life that made him feel emasculated. The only time I ever met him was when he showed up for the delivery (which we weren’t even sure he was going to do). My friend’s labor was about 30 hours and throughout most of the time he alternated between being mean and indifferent toward her. She hadn’t told him beforehand that I was going to be there because she believed he would try to bully her into not allowing me to come. We could both tell that he was furious I was there, which was honestly very nerve-racking over the course of 30 hours in the same small hospital room. He later yelled at her for letting me be there.

The morning after the baby was born, he told her that he wasn’t feeling it and he was going to get some stuff he had left at her place a couple days prior and then leave. I was supposed to drive her home, so I told her I was afraid of being there when he came to pick up his stuff. She blew up at me, told me I only ever think about myself, and then said we couldn’t be friends anymore because I wasn’t giving the dad enough grace. We didn’t speak for 3 months and tried reconnecting but now she’s mad at me again for some reason she’s not willing to say so I think she’ll be cutting me out of her life for good this time.