How to approach a tricky situation

I’ll give some backstory quickly. I’ve (19M) known this girl (19F) for about 8 or so years. We went though high school together, graduated and now we attend the same college, but study different courses. We got along fine in our early years, but had a huge argument when we were about 15 years old regarding a mutual friend of ours who was leaving the school because of bullying which was apparently coming from my friend group. I was totally oblivious to this, and when I asked her to further explain what was happening, she told me to never speak to her again and that what I had done was truly awful. We exchanged some swearing and then left it at that. I never really understood why she didn’t believe me, and I thought about that situation for many months and even years after it occured. We didn’t talk for a long time after that.

Flash forward to early 2021, we’ve just graduated a few months beforehand, and we start seeing each other at parties often and other general gatherings involving our friend groups, so we start talking again. She explains that she’s deeply sorry for cutting me off like that, and apologizes for her rash behaviour. I tell her it’s fine, and that I was more confused than angry, but I forgive her wholeheartedly. So now we’ve been talking casually for over a year again, and this is where my issues begin.

The thing is, I’ve always liked this girl. Everything about her was so strangely unique, and it made her stand out to me. It’s extremely difficult to put on paper, but I have simply had a huge crush on her for years. I hinted at something back when we were 14 or so (teenage banter) but got a hard rejection from her (where I then tried to play it off as a joke). Since I’ve started to talk to her again, we’ve talked in depth about our lives outside of education, and I’ve learned some rather emotionally disturbing facts regarding her teenage years, involving a few cases of verbal/physical abuse and general neglect from her parents, regarding her “outlandish behaviour and style” which was unlike her other siblings, which somehow warranted harsh punishment. She has mentioned the fact that she lives in a religious family (catholic) but doesn’t really like that idea, but has never talked to her parents about it. Overall, she has expressed (on multiple occasions) that she feels incredibly dissatisfied and saddened with the way she was treated as a young teen, and she now barely talks with her parents (despite still living with them), and is now seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety related issues.

My feelings for her have not really faded, but are rather resurfacing now that we’ve starting talking again and discussing personal aspects of our lives together and assisting each other through difficult scenarios and times. To be honest, she’s all I can think about sometimes.

How do I approach this situation? While my feelings for her are very strong, I’d hate to ruin the friendship aspect between us. What should I do?

TL;Dr starting talking to a girl I’ve known for years again after a long time of non contact, and I have feelings for her, but don’t know how to convey them, and don’t know if I should at all