my best friend went home for a month and a half and never came back

in her stead is someone else who looks a lot like her, but is not her.

She is older, somehow. Cutting, and dismissive. She is likely to liken me to a little girl, to regard troubled friends as childish, unmanly or frivolous with their time. I cannot talk to her about these things. Or, I choose not to.

She has outgrown my friendship, and I will let it pass.