My Heart's in Alabama

17 - Kiersten

The Jar of Truth

The night starts off relatively tame. It's nothing unlike our normal hangouts. We talk, eat some snacks, flip through TV shows. The usual. As it starts to get late, there's a break in the conversation and a few yawns here and there. A discussion of possibly calling it a night pops up, but Whitney has other plans for us. I can see the sleep deprivation has hit her and she's about to make things interesting.

"I know what we should do," she says with a mischievous smile.

I feel a collective oh no between Bridgette and me. The boys are clearly confused, but we both know where this is going. If there's one thing Whitney loves, it's stirring up drama. And there is no better opportunity than late at night during a sleepover.

"I'll be right back," she says and darts off upstairs.

She's gone maybe a minute at most. She comes down with a wide grin on her face and something hidden behind her back.

"It's time for..." Whitney says, building up the suspense. "The Jar of Truth!"

She whips out a mason jar covered in pink glitter and red ribbons that we craftily put together when we were about ten. It's been so long since I've seen that thing. I almost forgot it existed. Right about now, I wish it didn't. That thing is filled to the brim with all sorts of embarrassing questions we used to ask each other when we were bored and looking to liven up the night. Some of the questions can be quite revealing and there's plenty of them that I definitely don't want to answer in front of the boys. But, I guess that's what makes it fun. We all get to share in our embarrassment together.

"The rules are simple," Whitney explains. "Pick someone in the room and then pick a question. If you get picked, you must answer 100% completely honestly otherwise it won't be any fun. Once you answer your question, you get to choose who goes next. No looking at the question before you choose who to ask. No swapping questions and absolutely no skipping turns. Got it? Good. Who wants to go first?"

Whitney's eyes search for a willing participant but are met with blank stares. Bridgette and I know well enough to keep ourselves out of the spotlight and the boys seem too dumbfounded to respond. She looks around once more, sees that no one is going to volunteer, and sighs.

"All right," she concedes. "I'll go first. Bridgette, would you do the honors?"

Happy to not be the one in the line of fire, Bridgette reaches her hand into the jar and plucks out the first question.

"Who is your celebrity crush?"

"Oh, easy. Henry Cavill," Whitney says without skipping a beat. "My turn. I think I'll pick..."

She looks around the room and makes eye contact with each one of us. I feel my heartbeat start to pick up just a little. The first question was innocent enough, but this game can sneak up on you. One second you're naming your favorite movie and the next you're handing out your social security number and spilling every lie you've ever told your parents.

"Sal."

Being the good sport that he is, Sal smiles and scoots forward. I can't help but feel nervous for him. He's got the most happy-go-lucky grin on his face. Based on that last question, he thinks he's ready. But the type of question you get is entirely up to chance. I just hope he gets lucky.

"What's your guilty pleasure?"

All right, not so bad. Could be embarrassing, depending on how guilty of a pleasure it is. Sal isn't the type of person that gets embarrassed by stuff like that though. He will shamelessly admit to binging the Real Housewives of Atlanta with his mom every Saturday night. Matt though. He's a totally different story. I've caught him listening to Love Story by Taylor Swift so many times, I can't even count. Like no joke, I think it might be his favorite song. I even have screenshots of him listening to it on Spotify on a playlist he made, but he still won't admit it. Whenever I bring it up, he's always like Oh, Carrie was listening to it. Yeah, right.