Gym Anxiety

I was speaking with my coworker (we’ll call her A) about how I’ve been feeling like I need to be more active and she offered to be my gym partner. Well we went to the gym last week and brought another one of my coworkers (we’ll call her B) along so there were three of us. I feel as if B is a little bit judgmental and tries to play victim whenever something happens that isn’t even remotely about her, so I don’t feel comfortable hanging around her outside of work. I don’t like excessive drama, and I hate being dragged into it and having to listen to it. Aside from that, I don’t want to be the odd one out; three’s a crowd especially at a gym.

Since that day at the gym last week, A has been asking me multiple times a day if we’re going back and I want to, but I don’t want to if B is going. They’re friends and it feels wrong to tell her I don’t want to go because of that, so I keep making up excuses and I hate lying. I know that if I tell A the real reason, B will find out and start a lot of drama when all I want to do is stay out of that. I really would rather go by myself but I get really bad gym anxiety and am afraid that something will happen, it’s not a great area to be in alone at night. I don’t really know what to do at this point. Any advice or outside perspective would be much appreciated.