Duskfire Glacier bleak

"It doesn't mean you like me, either," Hawthorn pointed out, lifting a shoulder in a shrug, and feeling a biting feeling of guilt when his littermate was mentioned. "Leave her out of this," he hissed back, though his tone no longer held malice, but rather, an overwhelming sense of tiredness that a child of his age should not have. "I know what I'm doing, and what consequences it has, Kier," Hawthorn said, staring into the distance, then he heaved a huge sigh and took several steps back before collapsing on the snow covered floor, chest heaving, breaths short, with his heart hammering madly within his chest. He couldn't do it. In the end, he was just a coward, nothing more.
Hawthorn buried his face in his paws, refusing to meet Kieran's eyes. "Make it go away, Kieran," he hissed. "I don't-I don't want to feel this anymore." He didn't want to feel the pain and the hurt and the betrayal. In the end, it all boiled down to this - he could be happy and cheerful and feel optimistic for a time, but when night came and he was left alone to his thoughts, all that vanished and the cold came back. 
"I just want someone to have my back, someone who's going to be there for me no matter what," Hawthorn sighed, lifting his head. "But I guess that's not going to happen, is it? Life's too cruel for that." The boy smiled grimly, then tilted his head back and let out a bitter laugh. "Oh...I'm such a coward, I'm such a coward."