Independence

It had been a long while since Miranda had done something on her own.

While she hadn’t exactly been waited on during the few years she’d lived with Hansel, this was still the first time she’d donesomething that involved so much of her physical energy.

Even though money had been tight the first few years when Hansel had started his business, she still hadn’t had to clean the entire mansion on her own because they’d hired an hourly helper every week for the major cleaning.

After she was done with one tin of paint, Miranda could feel her waist aching. She really wasn’t used to physical labor like this after so long.

She went out of her apartment to the corridor to fetch more tins of paint. However, she accidentally tripped over herself and spilled one of tins over. Luckily, she managed to save it before it made a huge mess, but it still caused a few paint splotches at her neighbor’s door.

Miranda hurriedly went to grab a mop to clean it up. Halfway through, the door suddenly opened.

She looked up to meet her neighbor’s eyes, meaning to apologize, but she didn’t expect to see a familiar face looking back at her.

“You’re living here too?”

“What are you doing here?”

They spoke at the same time.

Paul looked at the ground, then at the tins of paint behind Miranda.

“So you’re the neighbor who moved in today?”

Miranda didn’t think she’d coincidentally meet him again. “It’s just as you see it. I guess we’ll be neighbors from today on.”

Paul’s eyes flickered. He’d chosen to live here because it was close to the lab and also to the college. It was fairly convenient for him to teach classes at the college and conduct experiments in the lab.

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But what about Miranda? Why had she moved here?

It was obvious that this wasn’t a suitable place for a single young woman like her to be living in by herself. There wasn’t even an elevator in the building. He figured that youngsters like her would never have chosen a spot like this. because of that.

Miranda thought Paul didn’t move or talk because he was mad that she’d messed up the corridor right in front of his unit.

“I’m sorry I spilled some paint, and it splattered on your door. I’ll clean it up

at once.”

She hurriedly cleaned up the mess and made it spotless as quickly as possible. While going downstairs, she pointed at the bag of trash in Paul’s hand and said, “Since I’m going down anyway, do you want me to take out your trash for you?”

Paul didn’t reject her offer. In return, he brought out a ladder from his unit and gave it to her. “It’ll be a little more convenient for you if you use this to paint the walls.”

“Thank you.”

Miranda managed to paint the walls a lot faster and more efficiently with the help of the ladder.

Within a day, she managed to finish painting all the walls of her apartment. At once, the apartment looked a lot cleaner and neater.

Miranda went to the furniture shop after that and bought a couch set and some tables and chairs. She then added some finishing decorating touches to the place before she was finally done.

It was dark out by the time Miranda was done sprucing up her apartment. She massaged her shoulders slightly and looked around.

With the warm–colored light shining down from the ceiling, her apartment looked nothing like it did earlier in the day. Everything looked brand–new. It was a complete change from before.

She also took a look at her bedroom. She had her favorite pastel–colored

sheets and covers on the bed. They gave out a faint yet pleasant smell of detergent after having been put out under the sun for the whole day.

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Also, she’d bought tiny potted plants and arranged them nicely on her windowsill. There were cushions and pillows of all sizes on the beanbag couch in the living room. It was especially nice to lean on while reading books.

In other words, the apartment had everything she needed and wanted despite being quite small in size.

“Is this your new place? It’s really pretty!” Winter exclaimed happily in her video call with Miranda.

“You’re so capable of doing things yourself. It reminds me of the time you redecorated our dorm rooms back in college all by yourself!”

Miranda chuckled and said, “It’s alright. Of course I’ll need to pay more attention to the details since it’s my own place now.”

“Mimi, you’re so much stronger than I thought. You’ve already found a new purpose for yourself.”

Winter managed to guess based on the address Miranda had told her earlier, but she didn’t say it aloud explicitly. “I’m really happy to hear that you’re going back.”

Miranda felt rather proud of herself as she ended the video call. She’d come to her senses too late, but luckily, she could still do something about it to reclaim what should’ve been hers.

D