Confess To Your Crush

There is a dear friend of mine , and we have been friends for 4 years. Last year, I moved to another country and because of that, we haven't seen each other for a year.

I accepted the fact that I was into girls only for about...a year now? and I was really keeping it undercover since my family is very religious and homophobic, not to mention my hometown is one of the place that severely criminalize homosexuality.

Me and my friend (Let's call her Marie for convenience's sake) have had a conversation about the LGBTQ+ community and unfortunately I had to say that I was against that since I had to hide the fact that I was part of them in the first place, and Marie said that she didn't accept the concept of it either, although she wouldn't treat them (LGBTQ+ Individuals) any different than her "normal" friends. It was honestly painful for me to hear that coming from her, although she wasn't saying it aggressively and I didn't really hear any hatred... it even sounded a bit superficial, a textbook excuse to hate LGBTQ+, almost sounds like she is only against them because of the religion she believes in prohibits that.

Fast forward a few monthsー Me and Marie always joke around like we're couples and call each other "Babe" , "My love", "My dear" and other varieties of romantic pet names...and considering I am a lonely, touch-starved, single queer girl, it is almost impossible for me not to feel absolutely WRECKED when she calls me those pet names, especially knowing that I was into her, although I avoid thinking of me and her in a sexual situation because doing that makes me feel as if I am a predator, taking advantage out of her (friendly?) affection towards me.

A couple of days ago, we were just chatting, talking about animes and games, and somehow we arrived at the topic of Mystic Messenger because I was listening to the soundtrack (THAT SHIT IS A REAL BOP Y'ALL!!!) and I said "bruh if that ain't playing at my wedding then I'm not getting married" which she responded with

"you will run away with me and that's where the game will start, then we will go with Jaehee's route, opening that hot girl shit relationship with a bakery owned by both of us"

To my fellow WLWs...we ALL know the implication...RIGHT?? IT JUST- it doesn't register into my brain!!! Jaehee....the lesbian/bi ICON of the whole MM fandom...A BAKERY?? the cottagecore domestic WLW DREAM!!! RUNNING AWAY?? god don't even get me started on this....just...please.

The shock that I received after reading her text was so ;; oh gosh oh lord...gay panic intensifies ;;; and I truly didn't know if she was actually giving me signals or she's just doing the usual job of playing with my feelings...and although I do love the tension, this ambiguity is KILLING me since I have harbored this feelings for quite some time now.

Aaaand to make matters worse, I decided to tweet that incident of me having a convo that basically went

Marie: we look like a couple ;)

Me: omg yes a couple of besties :)

ON an account where the only person who ever interacts with me is Marie!! and being the idiot I am I thought Twitter will cut me some slack and NOT put my tweets on her feeds!!

But yes, capitalism is ruthless and therefore, 5 mins after posting a series of tweets, Marie...liked those tweets.

Yes, except for the tweet where I implicitly said that I had "lots of love towards this person".
And this wasn't the first time either. I did post some highkey gay tweets in a thread and she only liked the ones that has no connotation of me liking girls whatsoever...as if she's just trying to tell me that she's pretending to not see any of it.

But now that it have come to this point, I could feel that the frequency of the times she uses endearing pet names towards me have significantly decreased and there's always this...uncomfortable atmosphere when we're talking that I couldn't quite grasp nor break.
Almost like a thin paper wall between us, and a single poke could reveal everything between us, but both of us are scared that we can't mend it better afterwards.

I want to ask for you guys' opinion on this....whether I'm reading too much into it or am I totally getting the wrong signals?

no TLDR since I suck at summarizing. Thanks for sticking up till this point. Have a great day y'all.