AITA for going out with my friend’s hallway crush even though they never talked?

basically back in high school, my friend Hope (f19) had a hallway crush on this guy from an older grade, we’ll call him Jake (m20). the reason why i say hallway crush and not crush is because they’ve never interacted. she simply finds him hot.

tbh, i also thought he was cute because he’s literally the epitome of my type: blonde and blue eyed. i wasn’t crushing on him as hard as she was, she literally joined a club he was apart of just to look at him. however, around this time, she also had a situationship with another boy who she really liked and a WHOLE BOYFRIEND AFTER so i thought it didn’t mean anything to her.

two weeks ago, Jake and I formally met through my best friend Kayla (f19). we knew of each other in highschool, and in fact, he told me he also found me cute but couldn’t “go” for me because his friend liked me at the time, and i turned him down. but now that friend has a girlfriend, so he figured he’d shoot his shot. i said yes and we went on 2 dates.

i kept these dates a secret from Hope because i was trying to gauge her reaction. she’s quite dramatic ngl but i honestly feel like she has no right to feel any type of way since Jake doesn’t even know she exists and i also liked him! they never talked, he never looked her way, it was never gonna happen! but maybe me hiding it from her was wrong on my part. i was trying to see if it would go somewhere, like if it didn’t and we just went on 1 date and never talked again, i wouldn’t have brought it up to her.

anyway, now i think it might actually go somewhere. he’s sweet and we both like each other/want to continue seeing each other. so today, i broke the news to her.

the first thing she said was, “wait, didn’t i have a massive crush on him?” it got a little awkward so i said, “oh, but this was around the time you had a thing with (her situationship), no?” and she said “yeah i guess.” then she kept on asking why i didn’t tell her, and i explained the reason above. the whole time she sounded surprised and was a little quiet and non responsive, which confused me bc wtf? it’s not like i dated her ex. he’s a literal hallway crush who she never had a chance with.

after that i sent her a photo of us on our date on snapchat and i feel like any normal friend would save that photo in the chat and be like “awwww” but no, she didn’t. she just said “wow he is really good looking” and then i changed the subject. i can tell the whole call was awkward and she wasn’t her usual self, every laugh was forced. it’s to the point i’m second guessing if i did anything wrong. i honestly don’t think i did because they never had anything and she can’t just dibs a random guy whom she liked for a bit? 😭