In every big family, there are cousins and, of course, often, secrets. But if you’re lucky, you have a few cousins willing to become your accomplices.

Bound by the unspoken laws of cousins, the oversight of parents who thought we were tucked safely away in our beds, and a shared love of adventure, we were unstoppable.

Jen had a fire in her heart that couldn’t be extinguished by a map or a curfew.

Somehow, it had to be done, so the operation was born.

She needed to see her boyfriend who had just joined the navy, and for our tight-knit little circle, that wasn’t just a desire. It was a mission.

“Jacksonville,” Jen whispered, as if she were naming a holy land.

It was a three-hundred-mile stretch of I-95, a lifetime away when you’re supposed to be hiding in plain sight.

The planning was military-grade.

Jen, Jan, and Nattie formed the logistics team, leaving nothing to chance. They knew the weak links: money, the car, and the parents.

I was the golden ticket.

I was the only one over twenty-one. I had the legal right to rent a car. Unfortunately for them, I also had a social life.

I had plans to hit the clubs that Friday night, and the prospect of a midnight road trip sounded like a special kind of hell.

“Don’t worry,” my little sister insisted, her eyes flashing with rebellion. She continued, “You just sign the paper. We’ll handle the rest.”

It felt like Nattie was planning a coup.

The stars aligned when the parents left for a getaway to the Dominican Republic. With the adults safely across the Caribbean, the opportunity was simply too good to miss.

I rented the car that afternoon, a sleek, unassuming white sedan, before disappearing into the rhythm of the city’s nightlife.

I returned home well past midnight, my heels discarded in the backseat and my eyelids heavy with exhaustion.

I barely had time to register that the twins, Jen and Jan, were already in the car.

They had even packed me an extra bag, as if I were a toddler.

One of the twins, I honestly couldn’t tell which one, given that my head kept nodding against the window, took the wheel and steered us onto the dark ribbon of the highway.

Nattie, who had been waiting outside her campus dorm, happily traded dorm life for the thrill of the highway.

Once Nattie took the wheel, the rhythm changed.

The car hummed north. The miles slipped by in a blur of streetlights and highway markers as we chased the dawn.

We pulled into Jacksonville just as the sun began to peek over the horizon.

The reunion between Jen and her boyfriend was everything we had hoped for: laughter, tears, and the kind of relief that only comes after pulling off something you absolutely were not supposed to do.

We left them to enjoy their time together and retreated to our motel room, collapsing into a heap of blankets, convinced we would sleep until dinner.

We didn’t even make it to brunch.

The peace lasted exactly two hours.

A frantic text chain lit up our phones.

Back in Miramar, the house of cards had shifted.

One of the younger cousins, left in the care of Tante Clarisse, had taken a tumble during a game of chase. It wasn’t a tragedy, just a scraped knee and a loud cry, but it was enough to send Tante Clarisse into a panic.

She called the twins’ mother in the Dominican Republic.

Already worried, their mother became even more anxious when she learned that we were supposedly in Boca Raton.

Then she started blowing up our phones.

Her voice was a hurricane of worry and suspicion.

She had no idea we were three hundred miles farther north in Jacksonville.

If she found out the truth, the fallout would have been nuclear.

We stared at one another in the dim motel room, the adrenaline of the road trip replaced by the cold dread of being caught.

“Pack,” Jan said, her voice calm but urgent. “We have to go back now.”

And so, the escape in reverse began.

We zipped bags shut and hit the highway before the sun climbed much higher. We retraced every mile, the excitement of the reunion replaced by the determination to make it home before our story unraveled.

Somehow, we made it.

We slipped back into the house, straightened out our alibi, and calmed the waters while Tante Clarisse was still catching her breath.

To this day, the adults believe we spent that weekend with Nattie in Boca Raton.

Looking back, it’s easy to see the recklessness.

We were young, fueled by a dangerous cocktail of loyalty and audacity. So many things could have gone wrong: a flat tire, an accident, a phone call at the wrong time, a careless slip of the tongue.

I’m overwhelmingly grateful that no one was seriously hurt.

And then there’s the irony of it all.

Jen and her boyfriend?

They’re celebrating fifteen years of marriage now, with two beautiful daughters of their own.

Sometimes I look at all of our girls, all of our children, and a chill runs down my spine.

Because the same girls who once plotted midnight road trips, coordinated alibis, and believed they were clever enough to outsmart every adult in their lives are now the adults watching the next generation grow up.

Life has a funny way of turning the tables.

The very adventures we once defended as harmless acts of loyalty and love are the same ones we now pray our own children never attempt.

And yet…

I hope they inherit a little bit of that fearless spirit.

I hope they know what it feels like to have cousins who would cross three hundred miles of highway just to show up for someone they love.

Maybe not at midnight.

Maybe not without telling anyone.

Definitely not in a rented sedan.

But I hope they know that kind of love.

Because when I think back on that night, the open road, the laughter, the feeling that we were our own tiny world against everyone else. I don’t just remember the recklessness.

I remember the magic.

© 2026 Addie DeRose