Whenever I prove to people around me that I truly am that Dragon Lady my rumour says I am, I also prove to myself that I am unlovable. Out of reach. A lonely star, shining bright high above all the others, a lonely star in the cold and empty skies. It's not a habit of mine to show anything but that light. Looks can be deceiving. And who would find it worthwhile to try and get behind them, when all they're being met with are traps, commands and insults?

Andrea survived my traps, my commands and my insults. I practically showered her with offences, and she got past them all. She didn't walk out on me because of any insult; she walked out on me because of the only compliment I ever gave. In her view, that compliment was the one insult Andrea Sachs could not live with.

You remind me of myself.

I wanted to tell her by using only those words, how much I admired her, what an amazing future she was headed for if only she decided to, what a special and strong person she is. I believed she would pick up from that comment – the way she seemed to pick up everything unspoken – that I cared for her.

I forgot one thing. Andrea hadn't put her heart up for sale yet. She saw beneath the public me into the person, the Miranda behind the fashion queen, a lonely woman whose money and power could not buy her happiness, and decided that she didn't want my poison to seep into her gentle nature and destroy it. Andrea decided that she wanted to keep her heart, no matter how many times it could be broken if she kept wearing it on her sleeve. She left because turning into me was the worst thing she could think of. Not an award but a punishment.

In reality, Andrea Sachs walked out on me because she knew what she really wanted and wasn't afraid to sacrifice anything to go after it. Therein lays the irony, because she is turning into me. Only she seems to be a much stronger person, because she is not going to compromise with her sense of self. Andrea is capable of something I never was – balance. She can balance self-confidence and kindness. She doesn't have to scare people to get her way; she gets her way by making them want to help her. She gets respect by being sympathetic – I am not respected, I am feared and hated. Those are not the same things.

I see her several times a week as she walks by outside. I have changed my schedule to be able to catch a glimpse of her as often as possible. She looks genuinely happy, that spark in her Bambi eyes that I nearly smothered has returned, she radiates confidence and contentment. She never developed any true sense of fashion, but it is better than it was before Runway, thank God. Sometimes I get an impulse to talk to her, find out how she's doing, but that wouldn't be very Miranda of me, now, would it?

I read all of her articles and she is a truly talented writer. I don't believe she's going to write articles for news magazines for very long, though. I believe the young woman who walks by my car right this moment is going to become a published author. And I wonder if the assistant I'll be having when that occurs, will be able to get me a manuscript of that book before it's published. I have my doubts about that. None of the girls after Andrea could do what she did. No one ever will. She was a glitch in my organization, the dark horse I never would've bet on if I hadn't been…

Been what? Momentarily out of my senses? That must have been it. I never explain myself to anyone, but this particular cause of action is something I can't even explain to myself.

Nor is this thing I am about to do now.