<human>: Could you distill the essence of the text into 1-3 sentences?

Thought I'd give this reddit thing a try for any ideas on how to approach this problem. Backstory is I'm a 22 year old male with a long history of social awkwardness (although I think I've been getting better) and an absence of a love life. 2 years ago I befriended a girl of the same age from my college and by the end of the college year, we were friendly enough to be able to hang out, go to the cinema together by ourselves, etc. Last year she went abroad for the entire term as part of her college course, and over that time we kept in contact on social media, to the point where we became comfortable with each other enough to have pretty deep conversations about our personal lives and secrets. I had always found her attractive, but really, my social skills makes me consider making a friend a huge win in itself! But as I got to know her more I started to fall for her personality too. Now she's back in the country, and we have been regularly meeting and enjoying being friends, even more so than before she left. My problem is that I'm afraid at this stage that if I reveal any feelings for her, and she simply doesn't feel the same way, that our friendship will be ruined, which is worst case scenario really, even worse than just being rejected.
Anybody have any thoughts on how I can maybe determine if it's the right thing to tell her how I feel, or to be content as friends (which I should emphasise I love just being friends with her, but those thoughts of wanting more are there)? I get that this is dangerously close to moaning about a 'friendzone' which is by no means my intention - if she didn't feel the same way, I would absolutely respect her decision!
<bot>: Slowly became friends with a fellow college student, and have developed feelings, but am worried that revealing this may shock her too much and ruin the friendship. Any advice?