"I'd pamper you," Tommy says. "I'd make sure you couldn't hear anything else. I don't know how I'd do it, but Billy, for you, I'd do a hell of a lot of shit. You're sorta special to me. And I'm tired of running away and hiding from special things in my life. Tired of being afraid they're going to be taken from me. That you're going to be taken from me."

Sooner or later he will. Tommy has just had the strength to come to terms with that little and painful truth.