I like him… but I think I’m too late?

This coming June, I (F) will have known my friend (M) for one year. Though it’s been an online friendship, it’s been awesome knowing him for as long as I have. January of this year is when I started to notice things. One instance, I had gotten home in the afternoon and turned my PC on. immediately there was a message from him. Turns out he was waiting for me to get home. I got a bit suspicious to this but immediately blew it off and didn’t think much of it. Though from this I started to notice some small, but out of character things from him. I knew for a fact that he liked me, but didn’t want to say anything until he said something. Just to be safe. Then about a week later, he told me he liked me. It hit me harder than I thought, considering I already had my suspicions, but it was nice to finally hear it from him. After he confessed, he continued with this small comments and actions, flirting you could call it, and that’s when things started to get a little out of control for me.

I am a person who’s hesitant to romance. It’s made it difficult to understand how I felt with all of this, especially in the beginning. A few times I was confused as to whether I liked him or the attention. There was a moment I was about to tell him I liked him, but I hesitated and those feelings just went away. Now they’re back, but they’ve returned slowly and allowed me time to understand these feelings and where I’m at and I finally understand how I feel. I like him. I really do. I’ve realized that I think about him a lot, want to always be with him, and even when he talks about another girl I get jealous (not something I’m happy about). Hell, I even stopped talking to someone else because I knew I had feelings for him. Of course, there are some problems. At first I told him it probably wouldn’t work, that we need to work on ourselves mentally. He has his problems, and I have mine. We also don’t live close, which has caused me A LOT of hesitation but that hasn’t really stopped me from wanting to tell him… but I think I’m too late to tell him? I mean, it’s taken me almost 4 months to figure this all out and I’m scared I took too long. I don’t want to tell him and it end up he doesn’t like me anymore. I don’t want to embarrass myself and would prefer to save myself the pain. I did talk to him recently as to writing this and he mentioned a girl he’s reconnected with. Maybe I was too slow? I just don’t know what to do and say. I don’t deal with confrontation very well, so I’ve been thinking about trying to be subtle, but I also just wanna get it out there. I’m conflicted. He means a lot to me.

If you want more details, just let me know. Thank you for your advice.

TLDR: I have a friend of one year, and it’s taken me 4 months to realize I like him back… but I think I took too long to realize this. I don’t know what to do?