The Velvet Parasite Chapter 2

Piper’s theft hadn't happened overnight. It was an erosion of boundaries, calibrated in millimeters.

In the beginning, it had been small, pathetic pretenses.

She would ride to school in the Bentley with me, and when girls at her locker asked about the chauffeur, she would flash a modest, dismissive smile: "Oh, our family driver. He just picks up Sloane on the way since she stays on the grounds."

She carried the vintage Chanel bags I had outgrown or tossed into the charity bin, and when classmates admired the leather, she would sigh: "Our housekeeper just grabs whatever from the dressing suites. My closets are so overflowing I can't keep track."

She staged self-portraits in our formal gardens, beneath the wisteria arches, captioning them: Finally home. Drained.

She had even taken a covert photo of my father’s silhouette as he walked toward his private car in the courtyard, posting it to her stories: Another transatlantic flight for him. Living with an empire-builder is exhausting.

When my parents enrolled me at Briarwood, they had demanded complete privacy. My father was Arthur Mercer; his hedge fund moved international markets, and his name drew predators, tabloid vultures, and security threats. Outside of the Head of School and three members of the Board of Trustees, no one was supposed to know who I belonged to.

It was designed to be a shield.

Instead, Piper had turned it into a masquerade.

Her late father had coincidentally shared the Mercer name. She lived on the Mercer property—even if it was the staff cottage tucked behind the stables. She rode in the Mercer cars, draped herself in my discarded wardrobe, and filled her digital life with the architectural details of my home.

She had never explicitly declared, I am Arthur Mercer’s daughter. She had simply stepped into the vacuum of my silence and let high school society construct the myth for her.

The first time I realized how deep the rot went was at the beginning of junior year.

I had been washing my hands in the marble restroom of the humanities building when three girls by the vanity mirrors began touching up their lip gloss.

"Can we talk about how unbothered Piper Mercer is?" one said, blotting her powder. "Her father is literally Arthur Mercer, and she doesn't even flaunt it."

"Right? Meanwhile, look at Sloane."

"What about her?"

"She’s just that destitute relative Arthur took in out of pity. Good grades, sure, but imagine being entirely reliant on someone else's trust fund to pay your tuition."

I pushed open the stall door.

The vanity mirrors went completely still. The silence felt heavy enough to choke on.

Piper was standing by the paper towel dispenser. For a split second, sheer terror drained the color from her cheeks.

I walked over to the basin beside her, running the water over my fingers, before turning to face her reflection.

"Piper," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "You can tell whatever lies you want about yourself. But adopting my father as your own? Aren't you ashamed?"

Her eyes welled with instantaneous tears.

"Sloane... I never said that."

"You didn't?" I unlocked my phone and held up a screenshot of her private story—my father’s study, his monogrammed decanter, captioned Dad's sanctuary.

Her bottom lip trembled violently.

"I just... I envied you," she whispered, her voice pitched just loud enough for the girls at the mirrors to catch every syllable. "I grew up without a father. Seeing how Mr. Mercer treats you, how he looks after you... it hurts sometimes. I was just pretending for myself."

"Does envying someone give you the right to steal their family?"

The restroom door swung wider as two more students stepped in, drawn by the tension.

Piper broke into full, breathless sobs.

"Sloane, I know you despise me. But my mother and I have spent our entire lives caring for you! Why must you humiliate me in front of everyone over a stupid picture?"

With those three sentences, the ground shifted beneath my feet.

By midnight, an anonymous thread dominated the Briarwood student forum.

Title: Charity-case scholarship student publicly degrades elite classmate out of toxic jealousy.

The post never named us directly, but the comment section didn't need names.

She’s an ungrateful parasite.

Living in their mansion and trying to police the daughter of the house? Psychotic.

Did you see that cashmere sweater Sloane wore last week? Piper wore that exact piece in ninth grade. Sloane literally wears her hand-me-downs and acts like she owns the world.

My fingers trembled with rage as I read through the vitriol. I marched straight out of the main house, through the gravel courtyard, and pounded on the door of the staff cottage.

Piper opened it. She was dressed in silk pajamas my mother had bought in Milan. Her face was entirely dry, as though she had been sitting there waiting for my knock.

"Did you write that post?" I demanded.

She tilted her head, and the tears returned on command, spilling effortlessly down her cheeks.

"No, Sloane. Why do you blame me for everything? I haven't said a single bad word about you."

I let out a cold, humorless laugh.

"Fine. Then unlock your phone right now. Post an announcement to the Briarwood network stating clearly that you are not Arthur Mercer’s daughter."

The color left her face in an instant.

She stood frozen in the doorway for what felt like an eternity before whispering, "Why are you backing me into a corner like this?"

"I’m backing you into a corner?"

She lifted her chin, and for the first time, the groveling, wounded act vanished. What surfaced beneath it was something cold, desperate, and sharp.

"Do you have any idea how people look at me when they think I’m an heiress?" she said, her voice dropping to a harsh murmur. "They hold doors for me. They listen when I speak. They treat me like a human being. The second they find out my mother scrubs your family’s toilets, I am invisible. I am dirt."

"So you decided to stand on my neck to make yourself tall?"

She didn't answer.

She just stared at me, her silence an absolute, shameless confession.

From that night forward, she stopped pretending in private.