Huddling under the tree you find that the dark rain is too strong for you to see your car clearly. The wind suddenly picks up even more, trying to pull you away into the storm. There is no way you can safely make it back to the house.
Afraid for your life, you cling to the tree as firmly as you can.
Seeking a place that will shelter you from the wind, you climb up into the tree branches.
This is one of four branches on its level of the story tree.
Why offer three story options here when the other nodes offer only two story options?
What's wrong with varying the number of options?
We've set a pattern, so changing it makes this node seem more important than the others. The reader's expectations get upset.
It isn't more important than the others.
It's not variety when there's only one exception.
Your question points at the meta-story that always accompanies a story-telling. It's the story of the ongoing series of performance or composition choices made by the author as the story is navigated to a conclusion.
The reader reconstructs that story.
It's a three way connection: the written or performed story, the meta-story of author's choices, and the meta-story of reader's adventure. At a play or movie there is the same mix of immersion and staging.
Making those meta-stories explicit may distract from immersion in the story.
Not necessarily. They can make for a deeper presence to the act of telling.