In a regular sentence, I could add more information by using dashes - like this - or commas ,like this, but what if I want to do that in a list?

Question

I'm writing a story where only certain people know something about my MC. I list the people like this:

Only my coaches, my best friend - Alicia, who’s also my cousin -, and her parents.

I add more info about my MC's best friend, and using commas would make it confusing and make it seem like the info is another list item, but using dashes doesn't look right because then I have this:

-,

Is there any other solution or is using dashes the correct way to do it?

Answer 1

I would use parentheses rather than dashes:

Only my coaches, my best friend (Alicia, who's also my cousin), and her parents.

I don't think I've ever seen a comma immediately after a dash, but there's no problem with using it after a close parenthesis.

I might also take Alicia's name out of the parenthese:

Only my coaches, my best friend Alicia (who's also my cousin), and her parents.

Answer 2

Since I don't have enough reputation to comment, I would suggest a list:

• Only my coaches;
• My best friend;
• Alicia, who's also my cousin; and
• Her parents

List entries start with a capital, and end with a comma, unless any element contains other punctuation (the comma after Alicia's name). In that case, use semi-colons.
If you add more description to an element, the bullet format helps you to group relevant data in a single entry:

Colonel Mustard, in the bathroom, with a rocket-launcher.

Source: "How to write a Minute" {RAAF guidelines, 1980's}