A friend moving away needs new ways to stay connected, not a test of who calls first.

Distance breaks the machinery a friendship was running on. Most closeness comes from proximity rather than effort: you saw each other because you were in the same places, and nobody had to arrange anything. Once that goes, both people wait for the other to make the move, and each silence gets read as evidence about who cares more. Nothing has changed except the mechanism.

Replace the accident with a small structure: a standing call, a shared thing you both watch, a message at the same time each week. Say out loud that you are setting it up because the old way is gone. Do not keep score of who started.