Theodore was quiet, listening. He hardly had a clean past himself; he'd killed two people, including his own father. Now, that wasn't exactly the sort of thing that he was going to share just to make Hugh feel a little better about himself. However, he could understand making mistakes, having regrets and wishing he could go back and do things over again. It certainly explained the bourbon. "It sounds like a bad situation, all around," he finally said after thinking it over. He hoped the delay wasn't causing Hugh any undue anxiety; he suddenly felt called back to being fifteen or sixteen, when he'd still had his speech problems and had to line everything up in his head just so in order that it would come out correctly the first time, with a minimum of stuttering or backtracking.
"And people make mistakes, especially when they're chasing things they really want in life. I grew up around a lot of ambitious people--" Hello, understatement. "--but that ambition didn't make them bad people. Even the things they did in pursuit of it didn't." Some of them were bad people, he reminded himself. "Being driven can be a blessing and a curse, and sometimes it's difficult to know what line is too far, especially when you're so wrapped up in it. So, if you're worried that I somehow think less of you now that I've heard this, well, you're mistaken." Hugh was only something like ten years his junior, but Theodore was really feeling the whole "dad" thing kick in just then. And on that same train of thought, at least he knew what to tell Elaine, because she was the one most likely to Google Hugh if she heard that he was in a movie, and he wouldn't be caught off guard. "I'm sorry it took a scare like that to reel you back. You sound like you've forced yourself into isolation as some sort of penance. But the fact that you seem to be making an effort now to meet more people tells me that you've come out the other side. And undoubtedly as a stronger person."