Advice needed on complex friend situation
Hello! I am just looking for some advice as to how to handle a very complex friend situation. I have been friends with one of my best friends, let’s call her Sally, for about 2 years. We became close very quickly when she moved into my flatshare. She had just moved to the UK from abroad and was looking for friends and I was stuck in a toxic (and sometimes abusive) relationship and needed support. In retrospect the friendship probably did happen too quickly and I noticed a pattern where she often becomes fixated on one of her friends romantically and then moves onto the next one. I’m not sure she actually wants to be with her friends but just likes to have these fixations/enjoys the chase.
Anyway, I moved across the country for uni - somewhat of a guise for getting away from my abusive ex. I moved here alone and it took a lot of courage but I did it and built myself a new life here. Sally moved a year later to join me when I had an opening in my flat for a new flatmate, claiming the decision was partly because she had missed me so much. She unfortunately found it really hard to get a stable job here and struggled a lot mentally and financially. I was in the midst of one of the most painful and traumatising experiences of my life (breaking up with the ex) and also struggling to find work after graduating. The friendship group I had made here fell apart right when she moved - it’s complicated but Sally was unfortunately the catalyst. It was already in the works and it retrospect inevitable but Sally unintentionally sped it up. The crux of the situation is that we became relatively co-dependent very quickly and she ended up feeling like more of a partner than a friend. We did everything together and admittedly I let her do a lot of things for me because I was struggling so much and she often took control of situations and quite honestly it was just easier to go along with it.
The situation got a bit toxic when she started seeming resentful. I noticed she started testing the waters with me a little bit romantically - she is naturally flirty with her friends anyway but she was making pointed comments that even I (a highly autistic lesbian) could work out as such (eg someone asked if we were together on a night out and she said no but turned to me and said I’ll be into you if you want). I simply reciprocated the vibes she put out because I tend to just let others lead and go along with things, not really knowing how I felt but recognising that my feelings were definitely becoming more complicated but ultimately I was enjoying her attention I suppose. That’s when she seemed to freak out and a bit - almost like she didn’t expect me to respond - and suddenly realised she had fucked up. Things then began to change and there were a good couple of months where she snapped at me very frequently over trivial things. I often get things wrong and can be ditzy and she frequently lost her patience with me, but not just in a harmless way - she would often talk down to me and make me feel stupid. She did apologise on occasion but it was really unpleasant and embarrassing when she did it in front of other people. Some people have suggested she did this as a way of sabotaging the romantic undertones of the friendship.
Things improved for a while after she left a horrible job. We were getting on really well and were really close - to the point where other people thought we were a couple again and we joked about it frequently. She recently told me if she was going to have a sister it would be me, which was sweet but also, of course, slightly confusing. Out of nowhere she also joked about us falling in love but that she didn’t see me that way, almost like she was trying to reassert the friendship or maybe convince herself. However, we recently fell out really badly on a trip away together when she ditched me last minute in our 2 person Airbnb we had booked together to stay with her friend instead of with me - someone I know she flirts with frequently. I was distraught and so confused by her actions.
I just wondered what people thought of this situation? Is this friendship completely fucked? Is it my fault? And finally, how can I fix it?