Sometimes I like the rain.

Now is not one of those times.

As the rain pounds down against the roof of the silver minivan, I clutch onto the worn straps of my backpack tightly. Mrs. Jeffries's voice is drowned out by the music playing in my earbuds tucked into my ears and the thunderous rain pouring from the dark, unforgiving sky.

The rain that form rainbows and dampen the freshly-mowed grass shavings covering green lawns that smell of petrichor is the good rain. It's the type of rain that you'd race outside to play in the dirty puddles barefoot when you were young.

The rain that's beating down on the world like an angry drummer is not a good rain. It makes you want to hide inside forever and shut your eyes so tight that you see fireworks of colors to distract you from the chaos brewing outside.

"Stop doing that," Mrs. Jeffries scolds loud enough for me to hear from the driver's seat, peering at me sitting in the very back seat through the rear view mirror.

I open my eyes and stare out the window. The school comes into view as Mrs. Jeffries pulls up to the front.

Trevor, who is just a year younger than me, looks at me from over his shoulder as if I'm some foreign animal he's observing at the zoo. His dark brown eyes blink. I ignore his stare and keep my gaze fixed on the large high school that I've been going to for about a month now.

Eventually, Trevor loses interest in me and turns back around to play on his phone.

Even though the Jeffries's minivan can comfortably fit eight passengers, I keep myself separated from Mrs. Jeffries and her son. The two sit in the very front, one behind the wheel and the other in the passenger's side, while I keep my distance in the very back, leaving an entire row of seats empty between us. At first Mrs Jeffries made me sit closer, but after a while she got tired of arguing with me and gave in. I think this placement is more preferable for her, anyway. The lingering smell of smoke is further away from her clean button nose this way.

Mrs. Jeffries parks right in front of the school behind a line of other cars dropping off students. She kisses Trevor on his head and ruffles his shortish light brown hair before he slips out of the car and joins his friends in the front of the school on the sidewalk. They greet each other with casual fist bumps and chill nods.

I climb out of the car without a word spoken to me. Mrs. Jeffries just adjusts her expensive sunglasses on her nose and turns the other way.

Once my worn and torn sneakers land on the sidewalk and I shut the car door shut, the middle-aged woman shifts gears and drives off. I pull my hood over my head, careful not to knock out my earbuds that are plugged into the 2007 iPod Classic stuffed in my sweatshirt pocket.

Only a few groups of students linger around the entrance of the school, waiting for the rest of their friends. Since it's raining, they're all gathered under the ceiling that sticks out from the school. I walk right past everyone with my head down and my blonde hair shielding half my face. No one greets me with a fist bump or a nod like Trevor. Nobody looks at me. It's like I'm not even there. It's how it has always been, though, and I'm comfortable with it. The less people pay attention to me, the less times I have to put on a show.

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I've learned a while ago not to have any attachments with anyone. No matter how special or kind they seem to be or whatever they promise about being there for me, always, they all pass me off. It's not even that they leave me, they deliberately hand me off to the next person who feels like being charitable because they're tired of dealing with me. Because I'm a problem that, no matter how many people try, cannot be fixed.

Mr. and Mrs. Jeffries were the most recent couple to take me in. I remember the disappointment and regret in their faces when my social worker and I showed up on their doorstep with my trash bag full of all my belongings over my shoulder. It's the same for everyone when I show up. Everyone wants a little kid or a baby, not a moody teenager.

Every family I stay with is different, but also the same in the sense that they're either doing it for the money or to feel better about themselves. Some families have no children and the parents have no idea how to care for anyone other than themselves. Other families have a plethora of kids and figure that the kids will accept some random foster kid from a completely different background as their own. That never happens.

The Jeffries family is not too different than the others I've been with. They're made up of four members: Mrs. Jeffries, Mr. Jeffries, their fifteen-year-old son Trevor, and their four-year-old daughter Savanna. Mrs. Jeffries is your typical soccer mom; she yells at Trevor's sports coaches about him not having enough playing time. Mr. Jeffries is more on the reserved side when conflict arises, but he has one mean glare. A week ago, when Principal Reagan called Mr. and Mrs. Jeffries to the school to discuss my behavior during class, Mr. Jeffries gave me one hell of a death glare that could have put me six feet under. Trevor is alright—he doesn't really talk to me, which is fine. I don't really want to talk to him either. He's always either playing video games on his PS4 in his room, playing games on his phone, or playing a sport. His room's walls are covered in large wall stickers that are cut outs of famous football, baseball, and basketball stars. The only thing that bothers me about him is how he always chews with his mouth open. Savanna is only four, so I think she was a surprise addition to the Jeffries family. She's got her own room with princess everything. Her dresser is princess, her clothes are princess, even her ceiling fan is princess.

I don't let myself grow attached to anyone in the family because I know that they'll just throw me back into the system again. Then I'll be moving into a new home with an entirely new family dynamic that I won't understand. Then I'll be thrown back again, and the cycle continues until I max out of the system at eighteen.

Knowing the inevitable prevents me from wanting to form relationships. Instead, I just sit back and watch the world go on without me. I watch others have fun with their friends as I sit by myself. I watch others learn and grow as I stay still in my little world.

My world changes around me all the time, and I just want it to stop. I change families every few months. Everything I own I store in a trash bag. Mrs. Jeffries gave me Trevor's old backpack from when he was in middle school, but I'm guessing I will have to give it back when they return me like customers return unneeded products at stores. I want to actually be able to call someplace home. But, for now, my music works.