I Don't Wanna Be Anything Other Than Me
A Girl Meets World AU Series
An Introduction

A/N: So, I had this idea jumping around in my head and I thought I'd try to flesh it out. Let me know what you guys think of it so far. I'll admit that the first chapter is a little awkward because I tried to save what character had what label until the end of their section so it probably gets a little weird to read at times but if you stick with me I promise that the next chapter is going to have you guys hooked. Since this story is NOTHING like the canon, it may take me a little more time between chapters because I'll be working on my own background information and making sure everything remains consistent. I can't wait to hear what you all think!

But you've become somebody else around everyone else
You're watching your back like you can't relax
You're trying to be cool but you look like a cool to me.

High school was hard.

Friendships ended and people changed.

Everything suddenly became different as soon as there was a change of scenery and those changes were not always made for the better. The only thing that could be said about the changes that involved positive words was that the changes occurred for good. They were permanent and there was no going back once the changes had been made.

Many had tried and just as many had failed. The person that you became after walking through the doors of what would be your school for the next four years was the person you would have to be for the next four years. You didn't get any second chances and you didn't get to have any do-overs. There was no sense in trying.

For those who had been "kings" back in middle school-positioned on the top of the food chain with a warped sense of the world-it was a hard concept to grasp. Reality kicked in and tore them apart, leaving them confused and unsure of what to do next.

When they had always assumed the the world revolved around them, they didn't know what to do when people had their own problems. When some people didn't even know who they were. They didn't respond well to being nothing.

Four students at Abigail Adams High School learned this lesson the hard way. Back at John Quincy Adams Middle School, they had ruled. Their teacher focused all of their lessons on the four friends, making them feel as though they were important. Everybody knew their name and everybody knew about the drama that occurred between their group of friends. They were the ones who everybody cared about.

Once they hit the ninth grade, though, everything changed. Their interests dragged them apart at fist. They struggled to remain the best of friends. Eventually, though, they weren't seeing one another in their classes and they weren't seeing one another after school. They weren't ever together and they drifted. Their incredible little foursome was torn apart and that was all there was to it. It was the end of an era.

Soon, nobody knew their names. They weren't important. They were just small fish in a big pool. They were insignificant.

Slowly, they found their place in the school. They figured out where they belonged and they made new friends. They found their way.

One of them became a cheerleader. She was the most popular girl in their class and she was the school's good girl, walking around with a perfect reputation. She seemed flawless, at least on the surface. But, of course, she had a secret to hide. A secret that she worked hard to keep from the rest of the school. Not because she worried about what it would do to her image or her popularity. She hid it because it was too personal to share.

Another one became the most popular boy, fighting to earn his place as the all-star Athlete. He was far from being Mr. Perfect, though. But, the question that remained was whether his tough exterior was just an act-a mask that he wore to keep the rest of the world out, so that could never learn the truth about him.

A third member of the former group became lost. She instead spent her day watching life happen around her. She want from being the center of it all to a silent observer, taking it all in. She was a journalist and a reporter. Her life was spent in the yearbook room or the dark room.

And the final member was the dork. He was mocked and taunted. He was teased. Those who didn't spend their days making his life miserable didn't know he existed.

But, before their four years were over, they tried to break all of the rules.

Small town homecoming queen
She's the star of this scene
Theres no way to deny she's lovely

The cheerleader glanced in the mirror, smirking at her reflection.

Everything about her was absolutely perfect. From her wardrobe to her hair to her makeup. Perfection was something that she strived for. She spent her days figuring out the best way appear as though every single aspect of her life was flawless and gave off an air that she was just a little bit better than those around her.

Her tan, pleated skirt with a large bow on the front fell perfectly to the middle of her thighs. A black, off the shoulder crop top showed off just a sliver of her stomach. Black, over the knee socks covered up her long, toned legs and a pair of tan, suede ankle boots with a high heel added about four inches to her height.

She had a tan leather jacket tossed carelessly on her king sized bead and a matching oversized purse sat besides it and her black and brown canvas and leather backpack tossed on the floor of her room near the door.

Every part of her outfit was designer, thanks to her step-father and his extravagant job. She figured it was the least he could do for her-spend a small fortune on her wardrobe.

She made her way towards her jewelry box, the golden locket she always wore swinging around her neck as she walked. She added a rose-gold bangle and a pair of matching hoop earrings. Placing a black headband to hold back her perfect, soft and glossy locks, she blew a kiss at her reflection and made her way out of her room.

Walking out of the penthouse suite that her stepfather rented at the best hotel in the city, she knew that she was somebody to be envious of. She knew that all of her friends thought she was the luckiest girl in at school.

So, why did she feel so sad?

Why did she feel so awful all the time?

Shaking off those negative thoughts, she forced her pink, heart-shaped mouth into a smile and thought of the photo of her birth father resting inside her locket, knowing that that never failed to make her eyes sparkly brighter than ever.

Pressing the elevator button, calling it up to the top floor, she stared at her reflection in the gold, mirrored doors.

Strands of curly, buttery blonde hair tumbled down her back, stopping at her waist, in a tangle of wild, unmanageable tangles. Her wide, doe-like, denim blue eyes were a deep shade of navy and the pupils were decorated with a tiny gold speck on the inside of each pupil, towards her slightly ski-sloped nose. She had a heart-shaped face with round, beautiful features.

While she was short-standing at five foot on the dot-her legs seemed to go on for days. She had a perky ass and wide hips, with a flat stomach and a narrow waist. Her chest jutted out and her curves were the reason for most of the male attention that she received.

The elevator doors opened and she climbed inside the carpeted, mirrored cubicle and pressed the lobby button with a nude, sparkly manicured finger.

Everything about her radiated wealth and she loved it.

Maybe, back when things were different and she had been raised by her "half-a-mother", workaholic waitress of a mother, she had struggled for everything that she possessed. But, then she had been adopted by her step-father and everything had fallen into place for her. She had quickly become daddy's spoiled little princess.

All she had to do were follow a few rules, whenever he bothered to be around.

Rolling her sparkling eyes towards her pale eyebrows, she slid on her designer sunglasses and prepared herself to meet up with her followers. She wasn't the type to have friends-the closest she came to having an actual friend was Missy Bradford, who she was sure was jealous of everything the blonde had. But, she had plenty of worshippers and it was better to be feared than loved, right?

As she heard the elevator settle onto the floor she repeated her daily mantra, preparing herself to face the outside world.

"You're Maya Hart and you're perfect."

Doesn't anyone here live an original life?
What did you surrender to be on the inside?
When you disappear they won't remember your name.

The tall boy tugged at the tee shirt he was wearing, rolling his eyes as he settled further down into his seat as he watched the blonde waltz by, head held high and nose in the air.

They lived in the same building and she couldn't even bother to give him the time of day. She acted oblivious to him, even though she lived on the floor above him, in the slightly larger pent-house apartment.

He couldn't really figure out why she lived in such a large suite when she seemed to live by herself, but he knew that the place was barely empty. It was a good thing her father owned the hotel that they stayed at, because he was sure that she would have been kicked out long ago for the wild and crazy parties she threw every Friday night after the football game.

Everybody thought that Maya Hart was absolutely perfect. The epitome of the "It" girl. She walked around the halls like she was Blair Waldorf in Serena van der Wooden's body.

It wasn't even like she attended some sort of elite, private school. She went to a charter school, so it was an amazing school-he wouldn't be her classmate if it wasn't-but it was a public school all the same.

The boy genius shook his head, allowing the shaggy mess of dark brown hair to fall into his cold, icy, grey-blue eyes. His round, slightly boyish features sometimes made it hard for others to believe that he was about to be seventeen years old, but the six foot tall, solid yet skinny male knew that he was attractive, all the same.

It wasn't his looks which kept him home on Friday and Saturday nights, however.

Instead, it was the fact that he was a nerd.

He was brilliant. He knew absolutely everything and anything. His father was a multi-millionaire for the technological company he had started fresh out of college. Farkle was even smarter than his father was.

At thirteen, the private school connected to their public school had begged Farkle to attend. Einstein Academy had done all that they could to try to get the boy to transfer, but he had wanted to stay with his friends. He had wanted the chance for some sort of normality in his schooling, explaining why he had also refused every offer to skip a grade.

If he had known back then, however, that his group would disintegrate as soon high school began? He probably would have taken them up on that offer. He would most likely be done with high school by sixteen and attending some prestigious, ivy league school with plans to earn some degree that would get him the best type of job he could think of.

Instead, he was stuck at Abigail Adams High School where he had to watch his former best friends walk through the hallways as if they didn't know one another. As if they hadn't spent every weekend at one another's houses. As if they hadn't hopped on a train together and taken a weekend trip to Texas. As if they hadn't come up with a million schemes that got them into trouble everywhere they went.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, informing him that his driver was waiting to bring him to school. He always sat down to wait in the lobby, despite the fact that his driver showed up at the exact same time every day, so that he could watch the blonde make her way through the lobby, texting away on her cell phone.

She never even looked his way, but the boy continued to hold onto the hope that one day she would see him and give him the slightest sense of recognition, so that he would feel as though he wasn't a complete nothing.

All he wanted was for her to give him a sign that she remembered him. She didn't have to miss him and she didn't have to go and talk to him. She didn't have to try to save their friendship. He just wanted her to make it known to him that he was recognized by her, so that he would be able to feel good about himself.

The school's invisible girl couldn't be bothered to speak to him, choosing instead to hide in the corners. The school's bad boy and star athlete wouldn't dare to risk his own reputation by speaking to the school's punching bag.

But Maya was different-people feared her and they worshiped her.

She was nicer than the other popular kids a large majority of the time. She could get away with flashing him a smile to let him know that Farkle Minkus wasn't completely forgettable.

Take a look at the invisible girl
Here she is, clear as the day
Please look closely and find her before she fades away

The invisible girl made her way through the subway, enjoying every second of her mint green and black, high heeled, feminine combat boots slamming against the concrete pavement.

Her black, skater-styled, overall-skirt set swayed against her upper thighs with every movement that she made, while her mint green, form-fitting tank top with the high neck hugged her flat stomach, tiny waist and almost completely flat chest, providing the illusion that she had some sort of boobs.

Beneath her skirt were here long, bare, pale legs that seemed to go on forever, especially with the impossibly high heels she was wearing.

Sometimes it struck her as weird-the fact that she seemed to be invisible at school, even though she was five foot ten. She was one of the tallest girls in the grade, yet nobody looked at her twice.

With her defined features, all consisting of sharp angles, she knew that she was a pretty girl as well. She had long and thick, blood red lips with intense, almond shaped eyes. Her nose was long and just a bit too narrow.

She reached inside her black, finger, over the shoulder purse and pulled out a silvery-pink wallet with black font across the front, grabbing her subway card before slamming the wallet back into her purse and shoving it away from her, wincing as it hit her black, fringe-decorated back pack.

Clutching her constantly silent, mint green with panda accents phone case and the newly obtained subway card in her hand, she used her free hand to shove her thick, black, plastic sunglasses up into her hair, pushing it away from her face.

A clutter of teal and black, rubber bracelets all relating back to some TV show, band, or movie franchise slid down her arm with the movement and her hair brushed against her black, moon and stars earrings.

The girl was probably invisible because most of the time, she wore dark colors. Pale pastels were the only accents of color that she ever added. Nobody noticed somebody who blent into the surroundings when there were bright, cheerful, and colorful girls all around her. Those were the eye-catching girls.

Not the school's yearbook photographer and newspaper's gossip columnist.

She was just a piece of scenery and she was never noticed.

Nobody spoke to her. Nobody insulted her and nobody complimented her. Nobody purposefully left her out of social outings, but nobody invited her either. Nobody defended her and nobody asked about her.

It was as though the girl who had been the center of attention for everybody in the classes back in middle school had disappeared.

Sometimes she wondered what people thought had happened to the cheerful and colorful girl with the loud personality who had to be in everybody's business. She wondered if they thought about her and she wondered if they knew that she was there, but just stopped caring when they realized that there were more important things to worry about.

Finding a seat in the subway compartment she had entered, she removed her sunglasses from the top of her head and shook out of long, glossy, raven black hair that fell in a pin straight, ultra thick mane to her waist. She reached up, fluffing her blunt, across the forehead bangs so that they were perfectly disgruntled once again, despite the mess that her sunglasses had caused.

Then, she turned herself away from the hustle and bustle of the subway car around her, trying to catch a glimpse of herself in the window of the train without appearing vain to those around her.

Her milk chocolate colored eyes with golden hues were lined with thick, heavy black eyeliner and a smoky eyeshadow job darkened them so that they lost all of their sparkle. Her lips were lined in a darker red than their natural shade and filled in with a matching shade of red. The rest of her face was true to its usual pale form.

While studying her reflection, she noticed him.

The only reason that she wished she weren't invisible. The only boy who made the fact that she was invisible feel so awful.

The school's bad boy had been running through her thoughts since middle school and she had had a chance with him, years ago, but now he didn't even look at her twice. He wasn't even one of the people who looked through her. He just didn't see her.

Riley Matthews just had to face the fact-she had stopped being important a long time ago.

'Cause I'm just a teenage dirtbag, baby
Listen to Iron Maiden, maybe with me?
Oh yeah, dirtbag-no, she doesn't know what she's missing

He was the guy that every girl at school wanted.

He was the star of the football team.

He was the star of the baseball team.

He was the star of the basketball team.

He was just a star.

He had a reputation that preceded him.

He was the student that teachers were terrified of having in their class.

He was the first one blamed for every prank.

He was the one to determine if something was cool or not.

He was the guy every other guy wanted to be and that every girl wanted to be with.

So, if he was all of those amazing things and he was such a crucial part to the top of the social pyramid at Abigail Adams High School, why was he ignored by the one girl he wanted?

Other girls meant nothing to him. All of the conquests that he had had throughout the years meant absolutely nothing to him.

They didn't excite him and they didn't make his heart stop. They didn't take his breathe away and they didn't make him stop dead in his tracks.

Instead, the girl who did that belonged to his teammate. He had to watch as she albeit ignored him, except for when she was being her usual perfectly polite self.

He couldn't have her. He couldn't touch her and he couldn't stare at her openly for too long. He could barely even talk to her.

Of course, that was probably a good thing since on the rare occasions when he did talk to her, he made an ass out of himself. A bigger ass out of himself than she already thought he was, that was. And she thought he was a pretty big one.

It wasn't hard to know her opinion about him, because she didn't hide was constantly ordering her friends to stay away from him, warning them that he would cause them nothing but trouble.

And he couldn't even hate the boy she was currently dating, because he thought that she walked on water.

Joshua Matthews, for all intents and purposes, thought that Maya Hart had hung the moon and stars. That the sun rose just to see her face every morning. That she was the reason that his world kept turning.

How could he compete with that? He was nothing more than a rebel without a cause form a broken home.

He had a dad who sent him money-tons of money-to try to buy his love and makeup for the fact that he was never around. He had a mother who cried constantly, over the fact that she had a failed marriage and a son who she had thought she had raised properly. He hated to hear his mom cry and he hated knowing it was partially because of him, but he couldn't change what he had become.

When his group of friends had fallen apart when high school had began, he had lost a large part of himself.

He had lost the better part of himself and he was the first one to admit that.

Now, he had no idea how he was supposed to get it back.

It was his punishment, he supposed, to have to watch Maya happily enjoy her relationship with Josh and walk around like the perfect little It-couple that they were.

They fulfilled the high school stereotype, at least. Josh was the quarterback and Maya was the co-captain of the cheerleading team. Josh was the golden boy, taking the bad boy's former place as Mr. Perfect right out from under him and Maya was the good girl-the virgin queen and the richest kid in school.

Besides, he didn't deserve a girl like her.

He ruined everything that he touched.

So, he enjoyed the fist fights he got into when guys talked too much shit to him at a football game. He enjoyed the way he'd push the smaller students around-and he especially enjoyed when he pushed the larger students around. He enjoyed his dates with a different girl every week.

He gave them just enough-but never his whole self.

He would make out with them. He would touch them and excite them. He would allow them to pleasure him.

But, they never did anything that could be seen as passionate.

Maybe it was strange that the school bad boy was still a virgin, but he was saving that. Saving it for someone special.

Even though he knew that the day would never come when Maya Hart came to him, begging for him to take away her virtue-for him to thrill her to the very core of her being-he held onto a shiver of hope that one day, she would do just that. And that he would be able to tell her that he had been waiting for her his entire life, because it was her-it would always be her and it had always been her.

From the first time he had ever seen Maya, he knew that she was something special.

He knew that she was going to change his life, and she had.

The problem was, she had changed it by giving him two choices to make.

He could be the person that they had all known back in middle school, or he could give in to his dark side and become the person he currently was.

If he had made a different choice, maybe Maya would be his. Maybe the two of them would be walking down the hallway like the perfect blonde pair that they were. They would be the it-couple and they would be the ones that everybody was envious of.

They would win prom king and prom queen. They'd be on Homecoming Court together. They would be accepted to the same college and then get married, living in a shoe-box apartment as they struggled to start their lives.

They would bicker and tease one another relentlessly, the way they always had, but they would never get into an actual fight and they would never leave one another. They would tough it out until the very end.

That wasn't his reality, however and he was going to have to face that face.

This was why Lucas Friar hated when his truck was in the shop and he had to take the subway. It reminded him of back when he had first met Maya, and it made him think about all of the pain he was currently suffering through because of his unrequited feelings for her.

Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you're acting like you're somebody else
Gets me frustrated.

They had all changed.

They weren't the same group of middle schoolers who couldn't be separated anymore.

The cheerful, happy students from John Quincy Adams Middle School no longer existed. Different students attended Abigail Adams High School.

Lucas "The Good", the moral compass that was Mr. Perfect, had turned into the school's bad boy, basking in the terrible reputation he had earned himself.

Artistically sarcastic Maya Hart, the queen of sass, had given up on her passions and settled for the image of "perfection" as she showed off her money, using the popularity to gain a different type of respect than the respect she had earned in middle school.

Unique and quirky Riley Matthews was no longer the center of attention. The ray of sunshine who had founded Rileytown hadn't been to that place in a long time, choosing instead to hide from the rest of the world.

Brilliant and confident Farkle Minkus, the boy whom everybody had thought to be a robot, who prided himself on the amazing friends that he had surrounded himself with back in middle school, had buried himself in his school work and albeit lived in the library. He was destined to be valedictorian and that was his only concern.

They were different people and they acted as though their middle school selves had never existed. They forgot about the friendship that they had had for years and focused instead on the images that they created for themselves. When they would see one another at school, they acted as if the other one didn't exist.

Of course, their lives forced them to cross paths every now and then. Maya was, after all, dating Riley's twin brother. Whenever she was over at Riley's house to hang out with Josh, however, she was vague and formally polite with the brunette girl. And after what had happened between the two of them in their final blow out, even Riley's parents couldn't bring themselves to comment on the blonde's indifference.

Lucas needed a tutor in order to keep his grades high enough to stay on all of his sports teams, and his tutor was none other than Farkle. They met up once a week to work on Lucas's homework and make sure he was on track when it came to studying for his tests. All of those meetings were treated as formally as a business endeavor. They only spoke about the material at hand and neither one dared to bring up old memories.

Maya was constantly forced to spend time with Lucas, because she was a cheerleader and he was a football player. Her boyfriend was on the same team as the bad boy. They went to the same parties and they hung out with the same circle. But, Lucas treated her as though she wasn't even there and Maya just rolled her eyes at everything she said, complaining about how vulgar he was, making everything inappropriate.

Farkle and Riley came across one another every now and then, because of Farkle's place on yearbook committee-an effort to add some nonacademic extra-curricular activities to his transcript for college. When he was at a meeting, they made sure to work on completely different sections of the yearbook so they didn't have to interact.

It was sad, the way that friendships could be ruined all because of one week, but it had happened. The group that had always seemed inseparable had been torn apart at the seems and it didn't look like there was a way to fix that.

But, sometimes something magic happens just because fate has conflicting plans than reality. That's when things start to get interesting.

And things at Abigail Adams High School had been boring for far too long.

Something had to happen to spice things up a little bit.

So, take a school's bad boy who had a crush on little miss perfect, who was in love with her equally as perfect boyfriend, who was the twin sister of the invisible girl, who happened to be in love with the bad boy, despite the fact that the school's biggest nerd was head over heels in love with him the girl that nobody else seemed to notice even existed.

It was a confusing web to weave, but that was what made everything so interesting.