I don’t want you to feel like you’re horrible. We all do lots of dumb stuff throughout our lives. I wanted to give you a no BS answer though. Like “hey, yeah that was not a good thing to do. Here’s what will likely happen and here’s the right thing to do. It’ll be hard but you’ll feel a lot better without that weighing your back down.”

Look at it this way: your friends might be mad. Some might be more angry than others. Some might laugh. You don’t know what their reactions will be. But I can assure you they will feel much more deceived and upset if they tried to spend their money to help you out when the truth is you never needed it in the first place. It will be much easier for them to get over than if they all spend money out of kindness when it wasn’t necessary. Don’t let your lie grow any bigger than it needs to be. Yourself and your friends will be better off in the long run if you nip it in the bud before it escalates any further.

Edit: I’m not your life coach, nor am I you or know your friends. My response is from an outside perspective coming from an individual who has told their fair share of white lies that got too out of control. You do what you feel is best, but I know what I would do in your shoes.

Yeah sorry but you did FU. No way out but to admit that 9 years ago you were seeking attention and wanted to be special. I don’t know how or why you haven’t owned up to it sooner. It’s a lot easier as a young youth to admit you fibbed and retain less drastic consequences. Now that you and your friends are coming into more mature ages it’s only going to hit harder and there’s nothing to do to mitigate that unless you move away and make all new friends. That’s almost a decade of a lie and you’re not even an adult yet. I’m not sure how you’ve gone this long (bravo I guess?) but unless you want to live this lie out until you either die or lose contact with these friends then you should probably come clean.

Side note: don’t let your teenage friends spend what little money they may have on a kind gesture for you that is completely unnecessary and not even legitimate.

This might sound harsh, and I’m sorry. However, that is the consequences for your actions and I hope this situation sheds a valuable lesson on your life.