My old friend (21F) told me (21M) that she wants to be friends again. How do I go about this without getting walked all over?

I was madly in love with her we were best friends in high school. Back then she was always into other guys, so we never dated... but we were still pretty good friends regardless. I couldn’t really be mad at her for not returning my feelings, because I never had the guts to tell her just how I felt. We graduated, and she went to college in another city and I stayed in town and got a job, my own place, etc.,

We still kept in touch for a while, sent memes and talked about how we were doing, but it was always shallow. The back and forth messages ended within a couple years. Which was funny, because I realized that when she was out of my life I started being more outgoing with girls. I still to this day haven’t had a proper girlfriend, but I was at least coming out of my shell and talking to women.

But in the middle of quarantine she started messaging me again, and we start talking again like we used to. She messaged me like a week ago and asked when I’m free to hang out. It seemed odd but I hadn’t seen her in so long that I invited her over for coffee and snacks at my place on my day off.

We did a lot of catching up about her school, my job and whatnot... Then she dropped the bomb that she was taken advantage of by her roommates boyfriend, and that’s why she’s back home. When I told her how sorry I was that it happened to her, she said that it’s not the first time that something like this happened to her.

I didn’t even know what to say or how to console her, so I was pretty much just watching her until she could regain her composure. She said that she’s been struggling with depression and hasn’t been doing well at all; the reason she reached out was because she needed a friend right now.

I genuinely felt bad for her, and she doesn’t deserve to be alone while she’s coping with all this... but I don’t know what I should do here, be her friend and fall for her again only to be overlooked and get walked all over? Tell her how I feel and make it awkward for everyone?

It’s taken so much for me to get over her, and even seeing her today brought back the feelings of affection I once had for her. I don't want to lose the personal progress that I've made, but I don’t want my friend to be alone if something traumatic just happened to her.

Tl;dr- the girl that I spent all of my high school years madly in love with and barely got over just came to me and said that she’s been in a dark place and needs a friend. I don’t know what to do.

Submitted December 01, 2020 at 09:47AM by UprightOrange https://ift.tt/2JiQ99r