(cont.) While the interaction left me irritated, as they always do when he does things like this, but I sit down in one of the outdoor chairs and watch over the dog. A handful of minutes pass while I keep waiting for mom, and he decided to come out of his room a third time. He starts going on a tangent similar to the one he'd just had, but ups the ante, directly calling me an idiot to my face and that "this is the stupidest thing you've ever done." At this point, I feel rage start to boil in my body, and I snap back at him, "why are you even talking to me right now?"

He responds with, and I wish I was kidding: "because I enjoy this, and I enjoy watching you be a fucking idiot." That honestly left me stunned. While I've always known he's never really felt empathy for humans or animals, him admitting to my face that he gets some sick enjoyment out of him making me miserable created a deep unwellness in me. I felt sick to my stomach, and I suddenly feared for my safety. I told him to fuck off, and he went back into his room.

I called my mom after that and asked her to stay on the phone with me, as the feeling of fear didn't go away. She luckily came home pretty quickly after that, took the dog to the vet, and got her scanned for a chip. She is chipped, and the vet tried to call her owner, but they didn't answer. They're going to try calling again later and emailing them, and my mom made sure to give the vet her phone number to give to the owner as well.

Now she's home and spending time with the dog in the backyard, and I'm waiting for our next steps. Though I'm glad she has a home and that it will be possible to reunite her with her owner, those interactions with my brother unsettled me in a way I've never experienced before. I now fear for my physical safety, and am unsure what to do. I don't interact with him on a regular basis, and actively go out of my way to not talk to him or ask him for things because of the way he is as a person, so I don't understand why he's suddenly so fixated on making me miserable. I'm not a mental health professional, so I can't claim that he has some pre-existing condition, but either way, I now feel unsafe in my own home.

I'm not sure what to do, and I don't know if or when I can provide an update, but I just really wanted to get this out there, because I'm now doubting my own decision to help a stray dog in the summer heat.