How can I ask this girl if she likes me (I'm a Girl too)?

Ok I'm kinda scared to because we're both freshmen in high school which itself is enough stress and reading "I like you" signs just adds to the stress. Plus, I am not really open to new people and the last person I told I liked them, who was a girl, eventually told a few of her friends after we were promoted to high school so I didn't care TOO much. Anyway I like how she gets aggravated when I hug my friend Shannon and how she laughs and smiles if I'm talking to her. However, lets not forget how we all have shallow sides and mine is the fact that she's always wearing weave and I just wear my ACTUAL hair down. But, back to the adorable stuff like how she was bragging to her friend about how a guy threw a piece of carrot at me and I threw it back and hit him in the face. Yeah I'm not nerdy just a smart and shy funny person. So how should I go about this?

I've never found a need to ask someone honestly. I find it better to just do this:

1. Hang out with her as much as possible, but don't intrude on something when you don't need to.

2. If flirting starts, just go along with it. At this point something more than friendship is probably going to develop.

3. If you get to a relationship status, then it's all about figuring out how much you like each other.


Each one of these steps should develop to the next one naturally (if it can't work out, that'll become obvious somewhere in them), you won't need to ask any strange questions (and hopefully not have to answer any).