Your old friend group isn’t wrong for staying the same. You’re not wrong for changing. Nobody has to be the bad guy.

Drift gets converted into blame because blame is easier to hold than loss. If someone did something wrong, there is a story with a shape to it; if nobody did anything wrong and you simply grew apart, you are left with plain sadness and nowhere to put it. The people who stayed the same are not failing. You are not betraying anybody by being different.

Try dropping the verdict and keeping the fondness. You can see them twice a year, be genuinely glad, and not pretend the old closeness is intact. That is a real relationship, just a different shape from the one you had at fourteen.