A friend who dies, it’s something of you who dies.

When somebody close dies, part of what goes is the version of you that existed only with them. The jokes nobody else understands, the shared history, the particular way you behaved in their company: all of it had one other witness and now has none. That is a real loss sitting on top of the loss, and it explains why grief for a friend can feel disorienting as well as sad.

There is nothing here to fix. If it helps, say some of it aloud to someone, or write down the things only the two of you knew. Carrying that part forward is slow work and it is allowed to take as long as it takes.