Can friends be lovers?

Two years ago I was invited to a party at someone's house that I didn't know. When I arrived at the house and met the girl who owned the house, her name was Samantha and right from the start I knew I'd get along with this girl.

We exchanged numbers and talked all night. At about two o'clock everybody started leaving and she told me I could spend the night. A few people and myself were all standing outside talking and she sent me a text telling me to go to her room when I'm ready to go to bed, that way she wouldn't feel bad when she told Dylan (some guy that liked her) that she didn't want him to sleep in her bed.

When we went to her room we talked all night while she took care of her baby, she was not consuming alcohol. After that night we started hanging out everyday for a few months. After a few days I started growing feelings for her but I thought nothing of it, I figured it was just because she was a very pretty girl. We were getting very close in a best friend kind of way.

One day I came over and she walked outside and I could tell she had been crying. When I asked her what was wrong she told me that she was moving away and she hugged my neck for about forty five minutes, both of us crying the entire time.

When I left I realized that I never had felt the feelings I was feeling for her and I knew that I didn't just like her.

That was two years ago and I told her how I felt not too long ago, she told me she loved me too but at the time she still lived really far away.

She recently moved back but never texts me, calls me, or comes to see me. I texted her the other night to catch up with her and I said something about how we never talk anymore and she said that she didn't want to hurt me anymore so she stopped talking to me.

I told her that how I felt wasn't just going to fade away and she explained to me that the father of her child, Ben and her were best friends before they got together and now they are the exact opposite and that she doesn't want to go through losing a best friend and love all over again. But, I have had these same feelings for her for two years and I've seen her maybe four times since she's moved away, so I think that if we tried being together it would work out.

I need a second opinion and help on what I should do to try and change her mind...