You can love a friend and still not have room for every detail of their drama tonight.

Affection and capacity are separate supplies, and they empty at different speeds. You can care about somebody completely and still have nothing left at ten at night after a shift. Saying so is not a withdrawal from the friendship. It is the honest gap between wanting to help and being able to right now.

Tell your friend plainly that you want to hear it and that it has to be tomorrow. Then be the one who opens the conversation the next day, so the delay reads as what it was.