I kept hoping consistency would return if I stayed understanding enough

Dear Delyara, I think that is what delayed the ending. I told myself they were just busy, overwhelmed, distracted, struggling, less expressive than me, going through something, not good at this part, still caring underneath it all. Maybe some of that was true. But I also used empathy to protect myself from accepting the more painful truth: the friendship had changed in a way my understanding could not reverse. I wanted history to make up the difference. It didn’t. That realization hurt more than the distance itself.