The Truth Will Out, a Freewrite

Billy's mouth would go dry at odd times, starting at a very young age. The time her mother found the salami sandwich her brother (not her) had thrown behind the washing machine. The time the grocer didn't give her the right change. The time the neighbor kid pushed her out of the tree. The time the doctor was trying to talk her into the HPV vaccine. For all of them, her mouth would go so dry her tongue would not function, and she couldn't speak.

It all got much worse in eighth grade. Doctors diagnosed her with acute anxiety disorder on account of all the mean girls, to the point she had to be home schooled. Math at home was cool, science for the most part, and literature she downright enjoyed, but the first time that history book got cracked, her mouth went so dry she could not breathe and had to be rushed to the hospital. She got better quickly that time, until the doctor came in and suggested a tetanus shot might help.

Her mother: "Why would that help at all?"
Doctor: "I suspect Billy is a carrier of tetanus, and it wouldn't hurt"
Billy: ---------------

It took many years before the cause of Billy's dry mouth episodes was diagnosed, but after that Billy became one of the heroines of our times.

Billy's mouth would go dry whenever she encountered a lie.

This is my entry to @mariannewest's daily freewrite challenge. Today's prompt is dry mouth.

the image is a detail of a photograph of my mother