“I’ve always hated how I can never share anything real with my mom. She either dismisses it or uses it against me.” – Laura Bailey

I don’t remember the exact moment I realized Laura was telling people I was the one behind the wheel when she got caught drink-driving the first time, but I believe I know where it started.

It wasn’t Laura’s lie that landed first. It was her mother’s. Debra told Laura that her conviction had ruined Luke’s career, her twin brother. She claimed he had lost his security clearance and a Foreign Office promotion because of her screw-up. A story soaked in guilt and weaponized like a bottle smashed on the bar top.

Laura always swallowed Debra’s poison, then found a way to spray it at everyone else. Soon she was out in the community telling people it wasn’t her conviction at all. It was mine. The truth was buried under vodka fumes and the warped logic that passed for survival in that family.

Then came Christmas. Laura tried to bring it up with Luke, expecting him to confirm his ruined career. Instead he looked at her like she had grown antlers. He hadn’t even known she had been convicted. Debra had fabricated the entire thing, a matriarchal fever dream designed to turn her two children into enemies while she sat back and played puppet-master.

It took me years to see it for what it was: not an isolated madness, but one more vector of emotional abuse Debra had used on her children their entire lives. Laura learned it well, becoming well-practiced in it herself. The goal is always the same: keep your victims on the back foot, scrambling to apologize for sins they never committed.

Every weapon stays loaded. Every trigger stays live. And once you’ve stacked up enough emotional blackmail, you never have to say “I’m sorry” again.