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What her doctor says, the thing most doctors say about taking care of yourself and letting things rest with proper medication and time off work, is different from what the band says.
And okay, the band doesn’t say it, and actually no one expects her to do this, but Kira knows, she just knows that the moment she wusses out the first chance she gets, she won’t be taken seriously. Greg got a bullet thrown at him and Henry, well, he’d be delighted in having a simple broken wrist over what he gets every night. Bill would think nothing of it, had it been him. He would care, but it’d be different too. He's the drummer, no drummer means no band, and he’s a man, he’s supposed to brush it off his shoulders, and so should Kira. The motto of Black Flag is adaptation, and adaptation involves sacrifice. Kira's sacrifice is her dominant hand.
The pain never goes away, ever. It's easy to say that something so fast, yet so excruciating, still pricks at her when she least expects it, but it seriously never goes away. It hurts to play, it hurts to load gear, it hurts to study. She’ll be in between recording with her nose in a book and she can’t even keep notes or lift a page without wincing.
It first hurt when Greg's sister was in the bathroom with her, standing at the door so she couldn’t leave. It hurt seeing her stare her down like that, letting the girl breaking her wrist accuse her of something ridiculous. It hurt trying to fight back the first time, only to be overpowered. Slapped so fast her vision went blurry. Punched so hard in the stomach it felt like the other girl’s fist embossed itself in her skin. Yanked up by her fringe, bits of hair forcibly curled out of her head. It hurt when it was her strumming hand that got the worst of it, because how is that not intentional.
Then it hurt during practice, when Greg would want the tempo a certain way and her wrist would be screaming for another, but she’d still play it for him. It hurt on the trip from New York City to Providence to Boston, all within twenty four hours, all rewarding, but never satisfying, never soothing that pain. It hurt in the van, when daybreak would be painting their windows with orange, and Henry would be awake with whoever was driving, and he would pretend he wasn’t looking at her while she pretended to be asleep. Only that hurt in a painless way, a way that’s best kept to herself. She didn’t want a new Henry hurt, not then, not ever.