<human>: I've been friends with this girl since junior high (age 14) but back then we didn't really spend time together outside of school. We started spending more time together at age 16.

After I had spent my time at junior high, I moved and went to a vocational school to study plumbing and she went to the other side of the city to study a subject that shall not be named.

A couple months after this I was on a walk with my dog and met her. Turns out that she lives 200m away from my house. This was a pleasant surprise and led to us spending time together again. Since then we've been meeting up quite often and that's been a lifesaver for me because since I moved away I've lost almost all of my friends (excluding her and a couple of others) and became extremely lonely, which led to me playing a lot of games just so I wouldn't think about the depressing stuff.

I've been thinking about asking her out on a serious date. I have no problem asking her out to the movies, for a coffee or to my house but I just don't have the balls to ask her for a date. Reason being that she's one of the most important people in my life and if she'd say no then that would mean a loss of a friend to me (let's be real, it's really awkward to be close friends after something like that). My friends keep telling me that she likes me in that way too (we've even kissed a couple of times when we've been spending the evening with a couple of friends).

Any advice on this situation?

Sorry for my typos and bad grammar, English is not my native language

Can you condense the text into a few key points?
<bot>: I like my long time friend and I think she likes me too but I don't know how to ask her out because I'm afraid of losing our friendship if she says no.