Couple fell back in love with each other when the man lost his memories in a strange plot twist

True love leaves an indelible mark. When a bike accident erased parts of Cody Bryant’s memory, he forgot his love, Haley Woloshen, reported PEOPLE. Unaware, Haley thought Cody had ghosted her. However, a surprising twist brought them back together, rekindling their romance and making them inseparable.

Cody and Haley had first met in Hawaii where both of them were on vacation: Cody with his friends, and Haley with her family. They bumped into each other at a Lahaina bar and discovered that both lived in Hermosa Beach near Los Angeles, just a mile away from each other, as Cody said in a TikTok video. They laughed at the coincidence and spent some leisure time together. They still thought of each other as strangers, and didn’t expect that their sudden encounter would turn into something “wild.” But it did end up wild. As they returned home, they started seeing each other, bonding over their mutual interests in travel and outdoor sports. Then one day, 35-year-old Cody ventured on a trip to Spain, and everything changed.

After Cody reached Spain, they continued texting. Then suddenly, the messages stopped. “We were texting after he got there and then suddenly — nothing,” Haley said. She took his no-response as a sign that he wasn’t interested in her anymore, and he had just been ghosting her, as he explained in his video.

Unbeknownst to Haley, Cody had been in a moped accident in Ibiza, where a car hit him, causing a traumatic brain injury and memory loss, including his memories with Haley. “Doctors didn’t know if I was going to live or, if I did, if I would make it out of a vegetative state,” Cody shared. “Everyone was in crisis mode.” Meanwhile, Haley, still feeling grumpy and curious, hit the button on Cody’s social media accounts and came across a post that struck her as lighting. It was a GoFundMe page created by Cody’s sister, Rachel, to raise funds for his medical bills. Haley realized she had been thinking it all wrong.  

After a month or so, Cody returned to the US and started using his phone again. From the text messages he read, he realized that Haley must have been someone important to him. “I saw all the messages I had sent to Haley and I was like, ‘Whoa, I must have liked this girl,’” he said. So, he took a chance, typed “Hey” in a message, and tapped “send.”

Soon enough, the love birds reunited and started dating each other. While Cody was still partially paralyzed and missing some teeth, he felt that his relationship with Haley was not a fling, but something serious. “Some of the feelings started to bubble up,” recounted Haley. She said she started driving him to his daily therapy sessions and spending quality time with him. Their romance was rekindling but they were still discussing how to take their relationship forward.

“We talked about, 'Is this a viable time to start a relationship?'” Haley recalled saying that he was the “most lovable person she had ever met.” Struggling with both physical and psychological challenges, Cody found his solace in music. Currently, living a few blocks from each other, the couple often travels together. In March, they attended a friend’s wedding in Guatemala, followed by a summer hike in Acatenango volcano and a trip to Yellowstone National Park.

Cody thanked the donors who had supported him in times of need. In an update on the GoFundMe page, he wrote, “I am determined to continue to summit mountains like this (literally and figuratively) in my recovery.” He said that he is still in “full-time recovery mode” and is undergoing daily “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), psychotherapy, physical therapy, memory/cognition exercises, meditation, and breathwork.” Haley called this segment of their lives “an insane situation,” but it ended up making their love only stronger. "Who knows if prior to everything happened, we would've connected the way that we did," she said. Cody chuckled, “I joke that she won me over a second time.”